HOROSCOPES and ALL THAT ROT

Not of course that I don’t have a smidgeon of belief !!
We are speaking of a Libra friend who is incapable of making decisions without months of discussion.
I rush in where angels fear to tread. And don't even start me on the angels phenomena or we'll be here all day
‘But she was born on the same day as Mrs. Thatcher and that old gargoyle never had any trouble making up her mind!'
‘Different rising sign isn’t it.' As if this a fact and that it settles the matter and they all nod wisely to themselves and each other.
‘And that’s such a Capricorn thing to say.’ And she smiles to herself, smugly. ‘Critical, practical, ambitious workaholics.'
‘Yes, so locked into success…’ Begins one.
‘In strictly material terms.’ Comes in number two. And her mouth goes into disapproval mode. I despair of their sanity. I also want to defend Capricorns on principle but it is hard to do so without shooting myself in the foot and admitting that I believe. And I don't, though when I go to the hairdressers and spot a magazine I look at the horoscope first. And if I find a tabloid in the pub I do the same, but that's conditioning isn't it? Not that I believe all this crap.

On the phone to a friend I say that I felt ill last night and I can just see the rest of my life stretching ahead with frequent periods of being under the weather. Her voice rises into panic:
‘Don’t even think that. If you visualise that it will happen.’ She says solemnly.
‘Well, I’ve been visualising being a millionaire for years and that hasn’t come to pass !’ I say crossly.
‘Well it wasn’t meant to be then.’ Like they get you coming and going. On the one hand, there’s this almighty power thing that can move mountains, lurking around just out of sight, waiting to come in with magical assistance but only if it’s meant to be. (And who decides if it’s meant to be?) On the other hand, if you are ill it is clearly your own fault because you haven’t been sorting your chakras or polishing up the old aura. I go back to her:
‘Well let’s hope that neither is my long-term malady meant to be eh ?’
‘Mnn but you must be very careful what you envisage.’
If only it were that easy I think and swiftly envisage her pinioned on a map of the Zodiac looking pitifully at Leo and Pisces with a lion at her throat and a fish up her backside.
But why does it annoy me ? Let them carry on with their foolishness I tell myself. Rise above it !
But it’s hard. You get somebody with the IQ of an emergent tadpole suddenly take on a look of mystical intelligence and issue a proclamation of such true banality that they should be chased from the room with sticks, and half the room go into a sort of trance. Their faces take on a look of intense idiocy and the snake oil phenomena takes over. Then, you could sell them anything but common sense.
I think I shall invent a token that can be worn round the neck and that will guarantee success in a chosen field of endeavour and the perfect partner. I shall make it of some kind of offal inside metal so that it gets to smell a bit and I will give out that it accustoms itself to your own individual needs and that the aroma is part of its response to your own unique body. I shall market this and make a fortune and if I begin to visualise it now…..
Yet I would like to be a believer it would stop me having to make decisions for myself and I have in fact almost believed in various things, chanted mantras, contorteed the body into odd shapes listened to friends wallowing in regret and taken my turn to wallow too. I was part of the consciousness raising, speculum waving generation and remember it as a rather jolly time of useful revelations.
But I expect that is a very Capricorn thing to say!