Last night, Romanian television was awash with astrologers, pyschics, energicians, homeopaths and other such quacks. All of whom were given time to explain – as if their theories had any scientific validity – the power allegedly being influenced by Traian Basescu’s Purple Flame Brigade. (Apparently, Basescu takes a chap called Aliodor Manolea – a ‘parapsychologist’ – with him everywhere).
All of which would have guaranteed massive viewing figures: many Romanians (especially young girls) are famously obsessed with astrology, witchcraft and such nonsense, which (by doing some mental, ideological gymnastics of the kind we thought only socialists were capable of) never seems to conflict with their Orthodox Christian beliefs.
Who can ever forget this terrific documentary from Al Jazeera English on the enduring appeal of witchcraft in Romania? (A part of the documentary was shown last night on Antena 3).
(As an aside, in the days before we were married, astrology was a good way of weeding out the non-starters: when meeting a girl for the first time, if the question ‘What star sign are you?’ came up in the first half-an-hour of conversation, the girl was considered a non-starter and given short-shrift. Indeed, one of the reasons we are so happily married to Mrs. Bucharest Life is because she has never, ever, in almost 10 years of marriage, asked about our horoscopes).
Anyway, we were reminded last night while watching it all, in baffled amusement, of two brilliant comedy moments. First, this routine about pseudo-science from Dara O’Brien:
Secondly, the short, yet to-the-point letter Kelvin MacKenzie, legendary Editor of The Sun in the 1980s, wrote to the paper’s astrologer to tell him he was sacked:
“As you have no doubt foreseen, you’re fired.”
Oh, and you might like this initiative: a mass, homeopathic ‘overdose’ to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them.
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my sister do believe very much in astrology. maybe the stars might have something to do with our futures-;’
Astrology sometimes do work and it can also predict the personality of a person.~”,
Christianity at its roots is very pagan at its roots, all the symbols and holidays are shockingly similar to the pagan ones, the word hijacked comes to mind
I believe you should rephrase this:
“Many Romanians (and that includes everyone, not just young girls) are famously obsessed with astrology…”
So obsessed that they would plan the birth of their children according to their zodiac preferences. How sad is that? I’ve heard someone telling a mum-to-be “careful, you don’t want your baby to be a Cancer, so try to hold on to the next sign”…
“Many Romanians (especially young girls) are famously obsessed with astrology, witchcraft and such nonsense, which (by doing some mental, ideological gymnastics of the kind we thought only socialists were capable of) never seems to conflict with their Orthodox Christian beliefs.”
Why should that be suprising? Au contraire: Christianity, like any other religion, is just another form of superstitious bollocks. Whether it’s purple flames or virgins giving birth or prophets walking on water — where’s the difference? All the same bullshit. Christianity is just dressed in the garb of social conformity — that’s all. Intellectually, it’s just a variant of the same propensity to unreason.
That may be so. Our point was that you can only believe in one lot of superstitious nonsense at a time, surely?
No. Once you believe in magic, why you should you limit yourself?
It seems the lesson the arabs are about to teach the West is quite welcome.
What????? :O
You don’t read the horoscopes????? Unbelievable!
For example I don’t even want to meet a girl whose sign is neither Pisces or Scorpio. And I definetly can say that Virgo or Gemini girls are big turn-offs for me.
Because my sign is Scorpio and my ascendant is Taurus which are placed exactly opposite on the horoscope and that makes me a man of extremes. And I really am a man of extremes it’s not just astrological theory.
Craig, I think you got very lucky, I think Mrs Bucharest Life is just the star sign that you needed in order to be fully compatible with your star sign.
Take for example my father: his sign is Sagittarius and he was married with my mother whose sign is Libra. Obviously there was no compatibility between them and after a few ugly years they had to break up. In 2004 he got married again and his wife’s sign is Leo which is fully compatible with Sagittarius and I’ve never seen him more happy than he is now with his wife.
And I have countless examples; take Basescu for example: his sign is Scorpio (like myself), he is very tenacious and mentally strong; it’s impossible to break this man and he won every fight when all the odds were terribly against him. From PSD we have Liviu Dragnea whose star sign is Scorpio; he rules the county of Teleorman, one of the few places where Basescu took a big beating.
And many many other examples, not only of star signs and their compatibility but also of numerology (which I happen to study) and maybe others as well.
Star signs are very real!
Also if you need a local concierge whom to ask about various unofficial stuff – this is what I (Parmalat) like to do on bucharestlife
Together with exposing some very odd personal opinions about stuff, of course…
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