Conference hydra::dejavu

    You're allowed to make a mistake within a trine, but mistaking an
    Aries for a Pisces shows your just fishing.

    Terry

    A true story:
    
    My wife and I were on a commercial airline flight to Florida.  One
    of the other passengers was a young woman who went around saying, "I'm
    very good at telling what sign you were born under," to members
    of her tour group.
    
    She was consistently wrong, even after several attempts ("Not an
    Aires?  Then you _must_ be a Scorpio!").
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    
    I don't think there are any easy rules to follow in guessing
    a person's sun sign.  There are too many components that make
    up a person's birth chart, and more often than not a person
    will be expressing their rising sign (ascendant) more strongly
    than their sun sign.  Another possibility is that the person
    may be so strongly entrenched in their south node that that's
    the energy you will pick up on.  
    
    All in all, it's not an easy selection.
    
    Carole

    I have the usual luck of the draw (bad) guessing a person's Sun
    sign.  
    
    I am much better at intuiting the Ascendent (rising sign) especially
    after physically meeting someone, being in their presence.  The
    Ascendent is an energy we naturally project into the world.  The Sun,
    depending on its placement in the chart, may not be that obvious.
    
    But I am most proficient, after meeting someone, at simply feeling
    what planetary/sign energy is most prominent in a given person's
    chart.  I do not know _how_ it is indicated until I actually cast
    the chart:  Sun sign?  Moon sign?  Rising sign?  Lots of planets
    in that sign?  Chart Ruler in that sign?  Planet makes lots of aspects
    to others?  Planet conjunct Sun, Moon, Ascendent?  There are dozens
    of possibilities...  But I can feel when it is strong, and I have
    never been wrong about the prominence of sign energy itself, just
    the ways in which it is specifically indicated.  I have learned
    never to try predicting that; investigating the reality of the
    manifestation is much more fascinating and I learn more and more
    each time I let the discovery happen that way.  Parlor game
    sign-guessing also feels to me like trying to "one-up" a person,
    and if someone feels at all vulnerable (many do) the last thing
    I want to do is play Madam-Marcia-Sees-All-Knows-All.   Not a great
    way to build trust, either as an astrologer or simply a friend.
    
    There is a very good reason why quite a few of you will never bat
    a thousand when guessing about prominent sign energy in others'
    charts.  It has to do with the way _your own_ prominent sign energy
    interacts with the other person's, and these interactions are complex,
    to say the least.  Many of you probably have one or two signs whose
    prominence you can sense just because of your own internal makeup.
    
    I now feel that the best thing to do is ask.  But I do not ask when
    first meeting a person.  Having cast and read charts for people
    has made me appreciate the lovely flowers of people's souls, and
    it is not knowledge I wish to abuse or to inquire rudely about.
    Think about it: if a person's natal horoscope is the blueprint of
    his/her soul, this is more personal information than anything that
    "polite society" believes about income, marital status, etc.
    
    Marcia

    I'm an Aries, and am very good and spotting other Aries'.  After
    a bit of conversation, I can sense that they have the same sort
    of sense of humor, energy, logic, and sense of self.  So far,
    I've never been wrong when I say, "Are you an Aries?" 
    
    -j
    

when I was in the 7th grade, I bet my science teacher that I could pick all the 
Scorpio's in the room just by looking.  She let me have 15 minutes while she 
went on with her lecture.  I looked for intensity in the eyes, and didn't see 
any that I'd define as Scorpio.  I did let the class know what birthdates 
during which they'd have to be born in order to be Scorpio.  I ended the class 
by saying there were none, and I was right.  I was the sole Scorpio in the 
classroom.

Linda Goodman, in her book _Linda Goodman's Sun Signs_ gives specific physical 
characteristics for which to look.  Some folks fit; others don't.  Like has 
been said before this reply, there are a lot of other planetary factors in each 
person's chart, other than the sun sign, which may effect a person's 
appearance.

    By letting the members of the class know what Birthdates constituted
    a Scorpio, don't you think that it would be easy to observe the
    people and see who was reacting in a sort of "Oh, that's *Me*" way?
     I know that if someone said to me, all Capricorns are born from
    (whatever the dates are) I would most certainly perk up.
    
    - Dan

    I agree with Ms. Butchart who says this is personal information.
    After all, aren't we giving someone else insight to our souls when
    we disclose our signs? That may be an exaggeration, but you get
    the idea.  When someone asks my sign, I say the first one that comes
    to mind. Invariably they say how I "fit" into the sign I just told
    them, and they go on to describe and compare all the like character-
    istics of what they know about that sign and what they think they
    know about me. "Oh YES. I could TELL you were a [...] right away!"
    One person was nervy enough to follow me out to my car as we were
    leaving work for the evening just to look at my inspection sticker.
    What she did not know was that I have a rented car that needs to
    be inspected on a different month from the month I was born. I really
    mind personal, probing questions that lead to incorrect analyses.
    
    So just by knowing that about me, what sign am I? Only kidding.
    
    				Regards,
    
    				Susan
    

    re: < Note 835.0 by KIRKWD::FRIEDMAN >
                        -< Guessing Astrological Sign >-

�    Some people are good at guessing other people's astrological signs.
�    What are some rules of thumb in trying to figure out somebody else's
�    sign?

    
    what's wrong with just asking????    

    I agree with .10. It seems ridiculous to categorize people by only
    12 possible categorizations.  Your "game" with giving a different
    sign every time sounds very similar to a game I play.  Whenever
    I meet a self-proclaimed psychic who professes great knowledge about
    me, I ask one simple question.  "What is my middle name?".  No psychic
    I've encountered has yet been able to answer that one!
    
    - Dan

    .10 - scorpio right??  If we guess correctly will you tell us??
    
    mary
    

>    By letting the members of the class know what Birthdates constituted
>    a Scorpio, don't you think that it would be easy to observe the
>    people and see who was reacting in a sort of "Oh, that's *Me*" way?

Gee, Dan, I hadn't thought of that.  I didn't use it.  But I guess it could be 
a parlor trick.  However, Scorpios are known to freeze their reactions and hide
their emotions on the surface, so a Scorpio is probably less-likely to react
in a visible way.

BTW it's a real Capricorn trait to assume a more Logical point-of-view.

    Meredith,
    
    Yes, I do.  Remember the heriones in romance novels that were madly
    in love with the hero, but for some reason or another didn't let on.
    He never guessed!  Well I am great at it.  Except in meetings at
    work when I'm not running ;them, and all the procrastinaters start.
    My boss (who is also a very good friend (friend only) and who knows
    me like a book, says that it all shows on my face when I'm angry
    or frustrated.  Something else I have to work on.  
    
    Sun, Mercury and Venus in Scorpio, Moon, Pluto, Mars, Leo and Cancer
    rising.  Can you imagine many men trying to cope with that.  
    
    I never try to guess anybodies sign 'cause there are so many variables,
    moon, rising, me tires.  But most of the time, I can guess a double
    Aries!!! :-)  Seven years of experience.
    
    Scorpsforever
    
    ..dale
     

    re .14:
    
    But the *absence* of a reaction is a reaction in and of itself!
     My point is that while it may be a "parlor trick" it is *not*
    uninteresting.  The ability to observe a roomful of people and to
    determine their "sign" by observing how they react to hearing the
    dates in which theirs falls is a *phenomenal* gift!  Imagine what
    a person with such perceptive and completely non-supernatural powers
    could accomplish!  It all sort of ties into my theory that what
    our mystics and soothsayers do is not necessarily supernatural,
    but *is* in and of itself very interesting.
    
    That skill shows up in animals to.  "Clever Hans" the mathematical
    horse, seemed to be able to do mathematical equations like a human.
    What it actually was doing was observing its trainer's reactions!
    Incredible!
    
    I *knew* someone would accuse me of being a typical capricorn. 
    Ah, to be stereotyped into one of twelve personality types, the
    shame of it!
    
    ;-)
    
    - Dan, born  under the sign of the maternity ward

RE: last bunch
    
    First -- many people have consciously trained themselves in skills
    of this kind.  In prestidigitation circles its called muscle reading.
    Much of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) concerns itself with
    training these abilities.
    
    Second -- that someone is not aware consciously of doing this does
    not by any means mean that they are not.  We are consciously aware
    of only a tiny, tiny fraction of what goes on in our mind (except
    perhaps in certain "altered states of consciousness" which, however,
    come with such a radically altered view of reality that these processes
    would be almost certainly completely meaningless and thus unnoticable).
    It has been shown time and time again that the subconscious notes
    much more of what is going on in the way of subtle little hints
    and at times integrates these into conclusions which we are consciously
    unaware of.
    
    Elsewhere I have described the general form of the evidence that
    what psychics do is to have powerful subconsciouses which are capable
    of doing this process relatively reliably and that they furthermore
    have learned to "listen" to their subconscious and thereby get
    amazingly (at times) accurate feelings, hunches, images etc.  The
    subconscious is, however, far from infallible and since it is not
    uniformly rational some of what comes out is not only untrue but
    nonsensical.
    
    It is also important to note that there is equally good evidence
    that at least for some psychics some of the information that their
    subconscious uses to reach its conclusions is not available through
    "normal" sensory or logical processes -- in other words they use
    psi.  Under ordinary conditions this information is inextricably
    wound up with the "normal" processes of the subconscious.  Only
    under exceptional natural conditions or in the laboratory can we
    or the psychics themselves reliably distinguish the two.  What
    psychics seem to sense when the sense that they have a "strong"
    psychic message is that their subconscious is sure rather than any
    particular source of the information.
    
    In other words -- psychics are people who make effective use of
    the amazing information processing powers of the subconscious, an
    outstandingly valuable skill.  The psi component of that skill --
    when present at all -- is the most surprising but one of the least
    significant components of those powers.
    
    					Topher

RE: .16 (Dan)
    
    By the way, Clever Hans did much more than simple arithmetic.  His
    owner had taught him an elaborate Morse code like system for tapping
    out letters with his hooves and had long, detailed conversations
    with the scientists and others who came to visit him.
    
    Furthermore, there was no need for his trainer to be present.  If
    this was necessary the investigators would have simply assumed that
    the trainer was using some subtle deliberate means of signalling
    the horse.  While he was most comfortable with his trainer present
    and refused to talk to some people, he was quite capable of having
    his conversations with most people (i.e., he could muscle-read
    almost anyone).
    
    					Topher

    Just fascinating!
    
    I guess the point I'm trying to make in my clumsy way, which you
    have fleshed out with facts and references, is that while there
    may be nothing supernatural occuring, what *is* occurring is even
    more interesting.
    
    I believe that this is also what Tarot card readers do, by observing
    how their client reacts to information, and making logical assumptions
    based on that information.  
    
    Information is a very powerful force. If you're on a plane and the
    pilot suddenly announces that the wings will fall off in 5 minutes,
    wvwn though youhave no way of telling if he's lying, your body will
    react in a very noticable way, with increased pulse rate, breathing,
    etc.  
    
    - Dan 

  Somehow "Guessing Astrological Signs" got equated to "Reading People's
 Reactions".  Why?  Because of Meredith's classroom example which has been
 assessed to have conscious or unconscious "reaction reading" as a possible
 explanation for how she was able to successfully determine that there were
 no Scorpios in a class (even though she claims that she looked for a very
 specific characteristic expression in people's eyes).  By the way, it is
 important to remember (as the Amazing Randi would like you to forget) that
 just because something _could_ be done with 'mirrors', does not _prove_ that
 it _was_ done with 'mirrors'.

  It is not the possibility of "Reading People's Reactions" which is in
 question here.  The actual question is whether any indications of a person's
 natal astrological chart (specifically the sun sign in this case) are
 discernible by looking at, talking with, or otherwise observing a person.

  The arguments presented so far which confound this question with the Clever
 Hans phenomena may be "interesting", but in no way address the actual question.
 This seems to be a "Clever Skeptic" method to me, which reminds me of some of
 the standard debunker methods that Topher explained recently in another topic.
 Dan (.16,.19) has apparently convinced himself that all astrological influence
 (and Tarot symbology too, no less) can be explained with Clever Hans methods.
 Ah, to discard ancient traditions which predate recorded history with the
 logic of a debunker, "the shame of it!"

  I agree with Carole's (.5) position that a person's natal astrology chart is
 too complex to generalize with a single (Sun) sign indicator which may be
 masked by the ascendent sign or other natal chart features.  I believe that
 Marcia (.6) has clearly explained why many debunkers have a field day with
 sun-sign guessing.  For those who still have an open mind, please take another
 close look at what Marcia (.6) has said that she *can* tell about a person
 upon meeting them; namely, "what planetary/sign energy is most prominent in a
 given person's chart".  Clearly this is the sign which would probably be chosen
 by her as a sun-sign guess, and of course it may not be the sun-sign.  But is
 it actually "wrong", and does it thus _prove_ that people do not express their
 natal astrological influences?  Debunker's logic would say so, but would you?

  In addition, Marcia states that she has "never been wrong about the prominence
 of sign energy itself, just the ways in which it is specifically indicated".
 This is a strong statement, and demonstrates that there is _something_ about
 a person which she can identify and relate to natal astrological influences.
 If more people knew more about their natal astrological charts maybe we could
 play a new parlor game called "guess-my-prominent-sign-energy"  ;-}.
    
						Todd