Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. THE WEEK AHEAD: May 18-24

In a world crippled by chaotic currents, the duality of vastly increased access of data and information to a relatively data-illiterate population, one which lacks both the sophistication and statistical training to understand how to use that data properly to draw conclusions, further turbulence and confusion can be expected. What is more perplexing is how the same data is used by experts and leaders to make decisions that concern us all.

Add this to the volatile mix of media, where even the most skewed factoid, extracted from the most obscure or questionable studies can go instantly viral, and you can see how quickly we all lose connection to the many definitional alerts that enable us to cling to truthfulness.

This week, let’s try to look at the facts, without allowing our biases and emotions to cloud our vision…

✦ MONDAY:

The Taurus Sun prepares for his exit into Gemini. Taurus is a ‘numbers’ person, and over the past month, he has meticulously ‘done the math’ on his accounts. As he heads for the exit, he takes with him some idea of his stocks, although a trine to Jupiter/Pluto (both retrograde), suggests the accounts have been conveniently manipulated and inflated to make a point to all society.

✦ WEDNESDAY:

Sun enters Gemini: The Sun shifts out of the materialistic land of Taurus, joining Mercury and Venus in the eloquent mutable/air of Gemini. Here he shifts the focus of our consciousness onto the intellect, mind and communications; words become important; exchanging information in the form of ideas, the mind becomes inquiring, eager to gather facts, data it can store, study, relate and compare…

Mercury Sesqui-Square Saturn: Quick comebacks and wisecracks can get us into seriously long-ranging problems, especially with those curmudgeons who don’t have much of a sense of humour. Lockdown and confinement turn to despondency. Catastrophic results for those who step out of their depth. 

Venus square Neptune: This month’s sustained square has created an air of distrust towards others. Everyone is a suspect. If we’ve ever been fooled or lied to, it triggers creepy memories of deception and deceit. Of course, under the retrograde, it is likely that we’re only hearing back the very echo cast by our own misguided projections. Feelings of being cheated, let down, or promises reneged originally began with us, months earlier, when Venus was conjunct Neptune around Jan 28.

✦ FRIDAY: 

The Gemini New Moon at 02°♊05′ is a perfect time to start a new project or set an intention with how to improve your lines of communication for the next year. How is it that you plan to nourish your mind? Which subjects are you interested to study, especially with relation to factual and detailed topics? Look to where you tend to be curious about things, where you tend to search for intellectual security in the world.

The trine from Saturn in Aquarius promises discipline and patience, good methods of organisation, devotion, concentration, determination, persistence and honesty in whatever we want to do. However, we need to be wary of Saturn’s innate tendency to generate fear or make us overly cautious, which could prevent us from exploiting all opportunities. 

✦ SATURDAY: 

Mercury conjunct Venus means there’s a chance for merriment and laughter, but the fact that both planets square Neptune implies that tremendous compromises to seeing the clear picture will be made in order to get that.

It’s like that movie or Netflix series that you know is based entirely on fantasy and imagination. Our choice of art paints a highly impossible notion of how things really are, but in our heart and mind, we would still rather prefer to escape to the on-screen fairy tale than deal with our sometimes cruel reality because at least in that world we can laugh and feign happiness.

Drugs, booze, hanging out with class-A liars, scoundrels and mental patients is another means to get bent. Just know… it all wears off and we must eventually come down to earth, ok?

✦ SUNDAY:

With Mars and Ceres now both in Pisces, there is even more fantasy and imagination afoot. The conjunction of these two bodies declares action that is nurturing and compassionate. Ceres is the Earth Mother, and we will see her being defensive about those who cannot fend for themselves. Approaching sextiles to Uranus means restrictions in parental and domestic relationships are rejected. Any self-preoccupation can now surface, creating later problems.

SYNOPSIS:

With Mercury/Gemini and Pisces/Neptune aspects being dominant this week, there is so much distortion of facts going around that it’s difficult to know who to listen to and what to trust. Sacrifices to truth may occasionally need to be made to soften the blow, but moreover, complete surrender to fantasies and escapism can also take us down some very weird rabbit holes.

An old maxim says something to the effect that there are three degrees of separation among liars. There’s the plain liars, the outrageous liars and then, there are scientific experts. This has lately been adopted by Mark Twain to “lies, damned lies and statistics” to throw shade upon statistics, which are always cleverly effective in manipulating the untrained or uncritical mind.

When someone says “90% of those who try this diet-pill never look back” or “most people agree that Bill is the most qualified to be our next president”, there is a certain persuasive influence upon the part of the mind which attempts to have us imagine that these statements are based on fact.

Of course, there is so much we cannot claim to know except by conducting polls and scientific studies, especially when seeking knowledge on the condition of communities and the masses. Even if the errors in using statistics were greater and more frequent than they are, the study would still be indispensable in gleaning some idea of what people think. But whether through malice, poor practices or simple ignorance, “bad statistics” have a rich legacy of perverting peoples’ choices, stretching back as long as humans have been counting things.

It must be said that whenever Neptune is involved, especially dignified in Pisces, it sensitises us into ‘feeling into’ things much more vast than our own ego. Neptune imbues us with the subtle, higher dimensional force of empathy. When impacting personal planets like Mercury (currently also dignified in Gemini) it interferes with the rational and logical processes of thinking by exciting (or aggravating) an overactive imagination. Whilst this can indeed end in rather humiliating circumstances, it is ultimately a humbling process.

Mental arguments are usually the result of some degree of self-delusion and a preference to stick to one’s privately-held version of truth and reality. Truth and reality are immutable and must exist, regardless of our perspectives. Since conflicts and challenges over the truth can be so damned abrasive, we might see a mental avoidance and a need to escape directly confronting the unpleasant aspects of reality, such as personal truths and social problems.

Muddying the waters even further is the rise of predatory publishers, indiscriminate or ‘opinion’ pieces’ and untrustworthy journals, often propagating their memes or “fake news” articles in professional-looking journal website with a distinguished-sounding name, or with fancy letters after their names or phoney credentials. Peer review standards and evidence-based “fact-checking” is often essentially non-existent, especially when the news is shared on social media sites such as Facebook/Twitter.

The greatest single contributor to data-driven “fake news” is the infinite statistical fallacies that so easily affect even experts and leading academics in fields that do not maintain rigorous statistical training and standards. Most of all, they attempt to force us into mandates that we have no option of rejecting. In the days of the corona pandemic, when our lives are universally impacted in some way or another, the tendency for circuitous logic, one that is personal or abstracted for easier communication, is rife. Whether we do it to ourselves or to others, our thinking often absorbs an imaginative influence, and it can deceptively veil the truth from sight.

I will not go on much further about this here since I discussed the nuances of these transits quite extensively in our last bus episode. I will just reiterate how prone we all are to shy away from accepting responsibilities, domestic, social, family and marriage ones, especially if our minds are prone to distortions with what we feel is unreliable information. Just be mindful that even seasoned journalists and scientists regularly issue findings that are deeply flawed and lead to further false and misleading headlines and interpretations.

Ultimately, we will make our own minds up, but whilst this week’s energies provide a deeper, more transparent insight into the motives and incentives of others, greater clarity into understanding our own motivations and intentions is necessary.

Forging a new, disciplined structure for our mind may require some perseverance and effort, and Friday’s Gemini New Moon shows us that efforts to retrain our neural pathways and reprogram our way of thinking away from private delusions and misconceptions promise benefits which, if persevered with, could lead us towards wonderfully creative new directions, either in the personal or socially-oriented fields.

I look forward to continuing this discussion through the week, offering empowering horoscope messages and New Moon intentions for your guidance. See you all on the bus.

Blessings, and may you have an amazing week xx

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