I’ve been a practicing astrologer for over 16 years, specializing in astrology compatibility. Being somewhat of a technophobe, I’ve largely avoided the internet for much of that time. All good things must come to an end however, so here I am, now an avid online reader and writer. When time permits I read and answer questions on various relationship astrology forums. Inevitably I read topics which go like this:
I’m a Leo, am I compatible with an Aquarius?
Answer 1 — yes!
Answer 2 — no! I’m a Leo and I dated an Aquarius. We split up.
Answer 3 — relationship astrology is stupid. I spent 172 hours researching that every single sun sign combination has had divorces.
Each of these answers is wrong, yet typically each will get people agreeing with it. On forums where votes are cast one of these answer is typically selected as being correct, and filed away for future generations of question seekers.
So what’s going wrong here?
It seems like whenever and wherever astrology compatibility is discussed on the internet that there’s an assumption that sun signs are the key to astrology. I suspect this is largely due to the desire to simplify, streamline and condense everything. Astrology however is a subject where simplification often creates problems.
The grim reality is that people are much more than just their sun sign, and if you want a ‘real’ answer to an astrology question, then you’ll need a real astrology reading. Going just by sun signs is useful to get a rough idea of what to expect, but there are many other planets which can override and trample someone’s sun sign traits. Every person and natal chart is unique.
This has led to the interesting situation where probably 80% of all information about relationship astrology on the internet is basically wrong. To qualify that metric, if sun signs could be looked at in a vacuum, then information would be correct. In practice (and people are asking such question to make real life decisions, and not as a hypothetical exercise) it’s just not that straightforward.
One interesting side effect of this appears to be a small army of armchair internet astrologers, handing out parcels of neat and tidy information on all aspects of sun signs. Why do they do this? Because the concept of keywords mean that a potential visitor isn’t going to search for “Aquarius sun, Leo moon, Aries mars etc” – they’re going to search for “Aquarius” – and woe betide any article which dares to lose focus by going off topic with qualifications. Anything more complex than that will lead to the browsers back button being hit, and pretty fast.
Fair enough, perhaps this is happening in all subjects. On the internet education is clearly being led by the student, and the educators are telling them what they ask, and not what they need to know. Search engines effectively force websites to meet the need for instant gratification.
The problem for astrology is that this obsession with sun signs is degrading the credibility of the subject. People are right to say “hold on, I’m a Leo and I don’t get along with Sagittarius! This astrology stuff is worthless!” Are professional astrologers guilty of this too? Yes, we are. Because otherwise, no one would read our articles! It would be fairly easy however for astrologers to put a disclaimer or warning when answering posts or writing articles, and perhaps that’s the solution?
For more information on astrology compatibility please see http://www.compatible-astrology.com. Just make sure to read the disclaimers…