How being an astrologer is like being gay

Because at some point you have to come out of the closet, being an astrologer has something in common with being homosexual.

"What do you mean "in the closet"?" I hear you ask.



Well, it's like this - most sensible people think astrology is a truckload of bunkum. And it follows that astrologers are either snake oil sellers or credulous fools.

Now, call me uptight, but I don't like people to think I'm either mad or an idiot or both. I like a bit of respect (Leo rising). Most other astrologers I know feel the same way, so on the school run, at the supermarket, doctor's office etcetera one tends to avoid mentioning exactly what it is one does.

But since astrology is what I do most of the time, and an astrologer is what I am, I have to come out eventually.

Now, this town is pretty equally divided into two types of astrology-haters.

There are the Dawkinis who believe - along with Professor Richard Dawkins - that anyone who believes anything unprovable in a laboratory is blathering fool. They sneer at astrology - but they don't know how it works. Here's a great example of a clever guy, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, getting it wrong. He hasn't bothered to find out that astrology is not just horoscopes before laying into it.

But you know who the Dawkinis really can't abide? The other type of astrology-hater. These were the ones I didn't even know existed here in sleepy Oxford.

The fundis - yup there's a thriving evangelical movement right here. The nice ones pray for us, I expect (any petitioning on my behalf to the Lord is gratefully accepted here). The righteous ones…well, I don't want to think about it too much. Put it this way, I'm glad I live here and in the 21st century. Not so long ago it would have been down to the duckpond for a good dipping.

So before I tell anyone what I do, I have to brace myself. Will they think I'm a charlatan, a fool or Satan's daughter?

I'm happy to report that most of the time it's OK. But not always.