Bias, in Astrology and Elsewhere

– by Charlie Obert

Confirmation bias – “This is the human tendency to see all evidence as supporting your beliefs, even if the evidence is nothing more than coincidence. This is another common phenomenon that we believe only happens to other people.”

“Confirmation bias isn’t an occasional bug in our human operating system. It is the operating system.”
– Scott Adams, Win Bigly.

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Here in the United States we are in the middle of another election season – actually, these days it seems we are always in an election season. If you follow astrology you are likely starting to see predictions as to what will happen in the 2020 presidential election.

I have noticed something interesting – with very, very few exceptions the predictions being made align with the person’s political preference. They predict the outcome they want to see.

That is what I want to talk about here – the overwhelmingly strong human tendency to interpret all data to match your opinions and preferences.

This is a particularly important issue to be aware of if you practice astrology. You need to be aware of the very powerful tendency to intepret any chart in terms of what you think the outcome should be, or in terms of what you want to see happen. I don’t think people realize just how strong this tendency is until you catch yourself doing it – and even then the tendency is to rationalize or otherwise justify your interpretation.

Take the astrology predictions prior to the 2016 Presidential election as an example. The great majority of astrologers I am aware of predicted a Clinton victory. You saw this in essays, in blog posts, and in group panels at major conventions. They were wrong, badly wrong, and it put astrology prediction in an embarrassingly bad light.

After I got over the shock of Trump’s election, and did quite a bit of reading and research to try to figure out what had happened, I realized that most astrologers I know have a progressive and left-leaning slant, so that their predictions were colored by that. To most of them – and I include myself in that group – the thought of Trump being elected was unthinkable.

If something is unthinkable you can’t think it.

Please consider that previous sentence carefully and let it really sink in – it’s a hard one to get a handle on. If you have already made up your mind that Trump could not possibly have been elected, then there is no possible way that you could have considered the astrological data as pointing to a Trump win.

The trouble with our biases is that they are just that, biases, and they filter and distort the information we take in and process. They determine what information we consider and what we ignore, and they determine how we interpret that information. They act like filtered glasses and they determine what we see. You can’t see what you can’t see. You are blind to your blind spot. You can’t be aware of data outside of your awareness.

After the 2016 election I got a taste of what it was like having what I couldn’t see being shoved in my face so that I couldn’t ignore it. It was quite a shock, and it helped make me aware of my own biases in a whole new way.

I read some of the post-election analyses by different astrologers, where they were trying to figure out what they did wrong. In every single case that I looked at there was a search for technical reasons. For example: I must not have noticed that opposition. Our birth time for Hilary was probably wrong. I should have included primary directions, or tertiary progressions, or included that really important asteroid or fixed star. I won’t make that technical mistake again.

I did not see any cases where the astrologer said, I must have been biased doing that reading, so my bias skewed my prediction.

Most people I know came through that election with their opinions and biases intact. They went into the election wearing a particular set of opinion eyeglasses, and came out of it with the same glasses on, completely unaware of what their glasses were failing to see. To state it more strongly, they were completely unaware they were wearing filtering eyeglasses and were completely sure they were just seeing the truth and that their opinions were correct.

My filter eyeglasses were shattered then, and it was a painful shock. After quite a bit of effort and research, wide reading and thinking, I came out of the whole process with a greatly enlarged world and a different set of opinions. I also came out of it humbled and shaken, with a much greater awareness of how much my biases were determining my interpretation – including supposedly objective and fair astrological interpretation.

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I want to look at a couple of examples here. The purpose of these is to show how what you are looking for determines what you see.

Here is a chart of a famous person – one I will identify later. This person is a known and documented sexual abuser, who used his political power and esteem to force a series of unmarried teenage girls to sleep naked with him.

I am choosing this documented fact as our filter, and we will look at the chart with that in mind.

The obvious place to start is with Mars in Scorpio, which is the final dispositor of the chart and is easily the most important planet. Mars is conjunct Venus, which is debitated, being in detriment in Scorpio. Venus is undignified, and in this case she is forced to act in undignified ways. Mars has all the power here and Venus is pretty much helpless. Mars together with Venus, especially in a strong Mars sign like Scorpio, often indicates a strong sex drive.

Venus is ruler of the Ascendant so she represents this person – and in this case she can also signify a person controlled by their lust.

The rising planet is Mercury, also in Scorpio and ruled by Mars. Mercury will say whatever Mars dictates, and Mercury Scorpio can often be devious. The man did this, he admitted it, and he justified it on the basis of his philosophy and position.

I could go further, but I think you get the idea. Once I point out this configuration it’s pretty obvious in terms of the data we have, right? I don’t see how you could miss it.

Now – consider your reaction when you learn that this is the chart of Mohandas Gandhi.

It is interesting to look at different interpretations of Gandhi’s chart – a quick Google search I just did came up with a handful of sites interpreting the chart of Gandhi the saint, the spiritual leader, the Mahatma or great soul, the non-violent pioneer, the man who died forgiving his murderer. I own some books having similarly adulatory interpretations of this great and spiritually advanced Mahatma.

Which one do you see when you look at the chart? It depends which one you are looking for. It also depends which one you might be invested in. If Gandhi is one of your great heroes you may notice yourself rehearsing reasons why those sexual allegations couldn’t be true, or they are presented wrong, or overblown, or just slander from vicious and petty people.

It is worth taking some time to browse around a bit on sites that talk about Gandhi, and notice how they deal with the sex abuse issue, if it is mentioned at all. As an example, here is a quote from the astro.com page on Gandhi.

He was in his mid-30s and the father of five sons (one of whom died in infancy) when he vowed celibacy and it became a continual trial. He was a great flirt and spent his life tempting fate. A long line of secretary-nurse-companions massaged him, bathed him and even slept with him “to keep him warm.”

So instead of being a serial sex abuser he was a great flirt who tempted fate. (Apparently it never occurred to him to consider how sleeping with those young women might have affected the women.) The rest of the page goes on to describe the life of Gandhi the non-violent warrior who sacrificed his life to the cause of India’s independence.

If you’d like to see a different take on the man, google on “Gandhi sex”.

Which is the real Gandhi, the selfless spiritual saint who was also a bit of a flirt, or the ruthless, manipulative, hypocritical and lustful sexual abuser? Are the pages talking about Gandhi’s sex life an exposure of corruption, or are they overstated slanders trying to destroy his reputation?

Check your own glasses and your own reaction to this example.

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That last example reminds me of the varied reactions you saw to the allegations of child sexual abuse against the late Michael Jackson. From what I can see there seems to be a lot of very well documented evidence demonstrating that abuse. Many of his devoted fans vehemently and angrily denied that those charges were true – the Michael Jackson they loved and adored would never do that, so they couldn’t possibly be true. There was little actual arguing against the facts, but just blanket denial with a great deal of anger.

He’s a good man. Everyone knows that’s a lie, and those are just slanders spread by people in this for a quick buck. Leave him alone. How dare you.

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In this next exercise I want to do two opposite readings of the 2020 Aries Ingress chart for Washington DC. This came out of a session I spent with an astrologer friend of mine, where we looked at the 2020 Aries ingress and deliberately tried to find evidence to read the chart in two contradictory ways. We were specifically looking for evidence that contradicted what we hoped to see.

This came from some advice from the fine horary astrologer Deb Houlding, who recommended that, if you have a strong opinion or desire in a topic, you should go out of your way to find evidence that contradicts your desired outcome. So, my friend and I did just that with the 2020 Aries Ingress at Washington D C.

Take into account here that I do not consider myself an expert on mundane astrology. What I will be doing here is attempting to follow the basic rules that I am aware of, rules that I knew about before I looked at the chart. I am not doing a full interpretation, but just a couple of key points.

We are going to look at the chart with two different house systems, as the interpretation can change dramatically between them depending on how you look at it. The first is the chart with whole sign houses.

In mundane charts it is standard to give the tenth house to the executive branch of government, the eleventh to the legislative branch or congress, and the ninth to the judiciary, the court system.

Here the tenth house is Leo, ruled by the Sun. The Sun, which represents President Donald Trump, is dignified in Aries, but is in the weak sixth house. So the President is in a position where he has dignity and is intact but cannot easily act. The sixth house can stand for the working class and the military, which are segments of the population where Trump has strong support.

The eleventh house, congress, contains the Midheaven, where all the focus of attention is. The sign is Virgo, ruled by a debilitated and corrupt Mercury down in Pisces opposite Virgo. This could easily be read as representing corruption in congress, which is spreading information that is biased and deceitful.

That’s one take. In this next image I have the same Ingress with quadrant houses, in this case Placidus.

Here the tenth house, representing the President, is Virgo. The ruler of Virgo, the debilitated Mercury, is opposite the Midheaven in Pisces. Here the tenth represents a corrupt President Trump who is dishonest and deceitful in his communications. The eleventh  house, congress, is the sign Libra, ruled by a dignified Venus.

I could go further, but I think you get the idea. I tried to just follow the rules here in both cases. Where is the corruption, where is the deceit? Which party is dignified, and which is debilitated?

This was a very interesting exercise for me to do. While we were interpreting the charts I noticed an enormous internal resistance to reading the data in ways that contradicted my own convictions and preferences. I kept wanting to find fault with one of the interpretations and kept thinking, No, that can’t be right, it makes no sense, because I already know that x is true. I didn’t want to see them – and I wonder whether I would have seen them at all if I had tried this exercise on my own in private.

It was a very interesting and eye-opening exercise. I recommend actually doing it, as I suspect that just reading about it has nowhere near the impact. Just reading about it, it is all too easy to think, nah, that could never happen to me, I can just follow the rules and come up with the true interpretation. I’m a Real Astrologer.

(As a side note I am betting there is a good chance that I get comments to this blog post taking issue with this discussion and pointing out the Correct Way to read the charts, and the Correct Conclusion.)

Confirmation bias is something that only Other People have. I am immune. I can see things as they really are. Of course.

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To close this essay I want to repeat the opening quotes by Scott Adams from his book, Win Bigly. They may look a bit different now after these mental experiments.

Confirmation bias – “This is the human tendency to see all evidence as supporting your beliefs, even if the evidence is nothing more than coincidence. This is another common phenomenon that we believe only happens to other people.”

“Confirmation bias isn’t an occasional bug in our human operating system. It is the operating system.”
– Scott Adams, Win Bigly.

What can we learn from this?

Be aware that your world is shaped by your confirmation bias – you see what you want to see, you hear what you want to hear, you take in news that you agree with and you reject news that conflicts with what you believe. Confirmation bias is not something that only happens to others, and it is not something that happens only rarely. It happens to all of us, all of the time, and it is happening to me right now. At best we can try to be aware of it. It is well worth the mental effort to perform exercises and activities to help yourself be aware of your own filters and your own bias. In my experience it is not easy learning at all, and there is enormous internal resistance to doing it.

This is particularly important if you are an astrologer. This means that it is difficult if not impossible to do a fair and unbiased reading on a topic that you have strong emotions and opinions. The strength of the tendency to intepret things the way you want is overwhelmingly strong, and I don’t think you realize it until you deliberately try to go against the grain.

It is well worth trying that exercise I mentioned, where you take a predictive chart and try to read it in two different ways, one you agree with and one you do not. If your experience is anything like mine you will be able to feel the pressure inside you pushing you to the interpretation you want. Going against it is a mental strain and feels like going out of focus, and it can be painful.

And finally, when you see an astrologer make a political prediction, and it just happens to agree with their desired outcome or political alignment – be very, very suspicious.

And, check their glasses.

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There is a wider application to this topic, one that is very important in today’s politically polarized world. I feel an urgency to this topic, which is why I am writing this.

To do astrology well you need to develop the ability to be objective, to set aside your own feelings, biases and opinions, and to be able to take on other people’s viewpoints. This is especially important in client work, where your job is NOT to impose your feelings and preferences on the client, but to enter into their world and judge in terms of their values, their frame of reference.

We will increasingly need that ability to be objective to function well in the modern world and to help heal the intensely polarized and highly charged emotional antagonism that characterizes so much of our political discourse.

So much of our political dialog today, especially that which is trumpeted in the mainstream news media, is highly emotionally charged and highly biased, with little awareness of, and little tolerance for, opposing points of view. That net result is to fracture the country, dividing it up into two opposing camps, where both sides are convinced that the other side is deluded, dangerous and evil.

We mostly hang out with people wearing the same glasses, and attack the other side wearing different glasses.

Standing outside of the yelling, both sides seem to spend a lot of time yelling about how THE OTHERS are evil and angry and THE OTHERS are spreading hatred, while WE are the side representing love and good will.

The evil people are always, the others, always THEM. The angry and hateful people are always THEM – and this is often pointed out with a great deal of anger and vehemence. (How DARE you accuse me of being angry and hateful! THEY are the ones who are filled with anger and hatred! WE are loving, WE are caring – and WE need to wipe those evil angry hateful people off the planet.)

To help heal our fractured society it is very important that more people develop the ability to be aware of their own biases, and to be able to suspend judgment and their own opinions, and to dialog respectfully with people who hold opposing convictions – even convictions that we may feel adamantly opposed to.

We need to be able to take off our glasses, and put on the other person’s glasses. Lo and behold, we may discover that in the great majority of cases THE OTHERS are not degenerate evil monsters, but are sympathetic and caring people with good motives.

And, something else very important happens when you take off your bias filter glasses and look at the world through a different point of view. You see things you never saw before, and your world becomes bigger, freer and more spacious.

Take off your filter glasses, and the light becomes brighter and clearer.

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The image of the sunglasses is By PaulApartin – http://www.shadesdaddy.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34972471