Sunday, January 23, 2022

Astrology For People Who Don't Believe in Astrology

I’m doing something a little different. A book called “Astrology For People Who Don’t Believe In Astrology.” 

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for a while you know I was doing something called The Skeptical Astrologer, where I look at ideas associated with astrology, without endorsing astrology. The Sonny Knight trilogy was an extended riff on astrology symbolism while containing absolutely no mysticism. I grew up surrounded by esoteric symbolism and am absolutely fascinated with it, even though I’m definitely on the nonmystical side. 

I shifted positions though, and in the Introduction I list four specific reasons: (1) a Newsweek cover story from 2017 claiming that all the astrologers thought a pending eclipse would make Donald Trump go away; (2) a multimillion dollar settlement in a fraud case where seniors were datamined through an astrology and psychic reading service; (3) some ineffectual rebuttals I’ve seen from skeptics who are so ignorant of whatever they claim to be against that they stumble into promoting things like ignorance and Eurocentrism; and (4) I lost a good friend a few years back and it had a huge impact. I can’t help thinking that there are a lot of bereaved these days feeling similarly, vulnerable to scams. Not to mention the vast numbers of conspiracy weirdos who have sprouted, some of whom are claiming astrology verifies their predictions (spoiler: no it doesn’t). 

 At first I decided to write a book about The Best Logical Fallacy For Your Sign To Avoid, thinking I could trick people looking for mysticism into reading a book about logical fallacies, but it grew bigger. This is what I’ve currently got for back-cover-copy: 

At last! An astrology book for the rest of us! This book will show you:
  • The best logical fallacy for your zodiac sign to avoid! 
  • The impossibility of predicting a single person’s death let alone all of them!
  • Why you can identify as whatever zodiac sign you want AND find an astrological loophole to justify it!
  • How to tell the difference between a harmless astrology nerd offering spiritual advice within a traditionalist framework and a fraudulent humbug trying to use astrology to separate your Aunt Mildred from her house!
  • What an ayanamsha is, or enough about how astrology theoretically works so you can have better arguments about it that people might actually listen to! 
  • How to write a convincing astrologer character for your fantasy or historical novel!
  • How to detect and avoid doomsday cults, skeevy dataminers and catfishing grifters!
  • Why mercury is always in gatorade!
You will not learn a single thing about your soulmate, personality, individual future or past lives from this book. It won’t show you how to draw up an astrological chart either. However, it just might be the first book about astrology that people who are generally interested in astrology (while allowing that much of what’s written about it is utter codswallop) and skeptics can enjoy together. 

I’m rushing this one because it seems timely and hope to have it out in the next couple of months. I’m not going to do a lot of promotion, other than hoping it’ll maybe catch on. I was thinking about using a variant of my name, keeping Charon Dunn for YA fiction and using Lani or Charon L. or something for nonfiction, but this is a book YAs might like, especially if their friends keep bugging them about Mercury Retrograde and they want a better counter-argument than a broad dismissal of astrology. 

I’m still in love with zodiac symbolism. I still use mystical concepts to structure my stories about non-mysticism, just like all those people who use Bible quotes in stories that aren’t necessarily religious. There is nothing in my book that is hostile towards people interested in religion and mysticism, or people whose interest in astrology does not extend to manipulation and fraud. 

However, for the people who are interested in manipulating and defrauding the bereaved, I’ve got a few things to say that they’re not going to like.

Stay tuned. 

And here's a progress drawing on the gorgeous cover art by renowned artist FNoRD.



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