When the time came for shooting superstitions, one of most important ones, Nadi Jotidam, was the choice. There have been write ups eulogising this so-called ‘science’ for both its breadth and accuracy, in telling the person whose leaf was being read about the past, present and future. In my previous investigations I had discovered that what was being done was cold reading, and I, being an old hand at misleading such people, can run circles around them. So, that was exactly what I aimed to do now. Added to this was the prospect of filming the Rationalist Club of Periyar Maniammai University, a village program and unmasking one of the so-called fortune tellers sitting outside the temple gates at Tanjavur, a location which we had already visited last month when I had been there. On the last day we had in mind a meeting of the Chennai Freethinkers at Periyar Thidal to bring into contact the old and new generation of rationalists. All these programs were perfectly arranged by the Tamilnadu Rationalist Forum, PM University Rationalist club, Chennai Freethinkers and others. Babu Gogineni, the executive director Director of  the International Humanist and Ethical Union, was also interested in these activities, particularly in unmasking of Nadi, and to meet the Chennai freethinkers.

On the first day, the 8th of June, we went to Vaitheeswaran Kovil, the most ‘famous’ of the places where ‘accurate’ predictions are made about one after searching for the appropriate bunch of leaves on which that persons details have been noted not now but thousands of years back. Here I pretended to be my brother-in-law, my sister’s husband who had passed away in April, 2011. I drew a prediction of a long life, and many of my problems were identified- my good, obedient eldest son, and the prodigal second one who had married a low-caste woman, which had caused problems with the marriage of my daughter leading to her engagement being broken. It was also said that I was a brahmin at Palakkad in my previous birth and had died at the age of 40.

Having identified the problems, how could there be no solutions? I was told to perform some pujas at the temple for about three months at regular intervals. Solutions were guaranteed! The next day we went to meet another Nadi Jotish who had his own theories about Nadi leaves and all that. His specialisation was taking fingerprints and then searching through the leaves for the ones that matched them! Our friend Babu was the subject and his leaves were being searched for. The ‘expert’ sitting in an air conditioned room was very gracious. He said that there are ten books for every person, and it was his job to identify the right one for each. He would do so by asking personal questions and then finding the right one. After this was done, he assured us, it would be smooth sailing. He would tell us all the details from our past, present and future. The entire problem was identifying the right one! Despite of all his questioning and probing he could not identify the right set belonging to Babu! When we walked out leaving Babu to his fate, he followed us in a few minutes with a smile. The search could not be completed as Babu’s leaves seemed to be missing. Babu told us that there were no charges but was told that he would have to pay after his set of leaves were found!

On the same day evening we traveled to Tiruchirapalli to visit the famous Brihadeeswaran temple at Tanjavur, and to also take a look at the parrot jotishes who sit in line outside the temple. We had visited that place a week ago, and had identified the proper candidates for a ‘reading’. In our team we had the set of young rationalist from the area- Kali Muthu: a professional magician,  Sindhu: a girl studying engineering, Ilangovan: a post graduate final year student, and us from Chennai. There were a dozen vendors on the street- some with parrots, some with cowrie shells and those of cucumbers. Gareth went around shooting them and giving them a hundred rupee note each. They were fascinated with this generous White man and agreed to be shot, particularly the parrot astrologers.

The sequence would be the same; the door of the cage would be opened, the poor parrot, whose wings had been clipped to prevent it from flying away, would strut out, pick up a card from a stack, and hand it over to the reader. The signal for the card to be handed over would be given by the owner who would be sitting across, watching it. He would then open the folded card take out pictures of deities and spin stories about them. He would elicit information by the process of cold-reading and then advise the client. It could be anything from a simple puja to a complicated ritual involving his guru and a plaque with mantras written on it that could ward off all evil and do good as well. I had assumed the identity of ‘Ramachandran’, a tourist guide from Karnataka who had come along with the rich White man. After he was paid a hundred rupees the Jotish agreed to be filmed. After his predictions I confronted him and asked him what was preventing him from performing for himself all the rituals that were supposed to bring me money, instead of sitting on the roadside with his silly parrot. He told me that his solutions don’t work on himself. Then I told him to take the advice of the man with the parrot sitting next to him. He laughed and was unable to reply.

The entire community  on the street was happy that they were being filmed, probably unaware that it was to expose them. I told them that whether it was the parrot card or Tarrot card, Nadi leaves or tea laeves, these were only props to create an atmosphere of awe. The actual predictions were done by cold reading. When I was asked as to why I was after this poor chap on the street, I had to say that our movement is like a broom- when we use it, both the large and the small debris are swept away together!

Our afternoon session was with the members of the Rationalist club of the Periyar Maniammai University.There we had discussions with the students about many subjects that could not be covered at the last session with them due to paucity of time. We also held a session to demonstrate cold reading as practiced by fortune tellers.

We summoned a lady from the outside who was an attender and started the session with her. I explained to her that I was an expert in astronumeropalmistry which was a combination of three sciences and hence very accurate. I wrote her name in English, made some calculations, and told her that her lucky number was 6. She was amazed. I proceeded to tell her how things had happened in her life in multiples of 6. I told her how there had been a very significant change in her life when she was six. She said that her family changed their house. The I told her that at the age of 12 there had been another significant evene in her life, which I did not want to mention in public. I went on to tell her that at the age of 18 there was another one, and she replied that she gotten married. Then I told her that the next event would have been at half of six-  in three years. Yes, she said, she delivered her first child. At that I said the next one should have followed in three more years. She said it would have but for the fact that she lost her husband.

Then I started telling her about her son- a very intelligent boy who loved her very much up to the age of six, was indifferent at 12 and would be a major problem by the age of 18. She replied that he was sixteen, that it was already happening and that people were trying to poison his mind. I told her that the problem was with Saturn who was casting evil glances on her family and persuaded her to to do a puja saying that gold was needed for it. I made her hand over her gold chain and ring, put them into a one handed change-over bag! Then I made them disappear and gave her a few toffees from the same bag after telling her that her gold had been taken away by the god. I told her to give them to her son to eat. It would change his mind and he could become close to her! She was fully convinced and was ready to forgo her gold! Then I returned it to her and told her that the whole thing was total nonsense, but she was not ready to believe that I was not the real thing. She told me that what I had told about her was completely accurate. Some of the audience too were convinced that I had the powers of prediction and wanted to know the formula that I had used to calculate her lucky number. They were not willing to accept that the whole thing was a sham. Then I had to explain to them how the Nadi readers read the body signals and elicit answers by asking indirect questions, and how all those props used by them are just a show to convince people about their powers. The conditioning of the minds of our people goes so deep that they find it very difficult to believe that no one has such powers of prediction. They are totally amazed when I talk about the past, apparently by calculating from some formulae and writing down numbers!

From there it was back to Chennai for the last part of the shoot- the meeting of the Chennai Free thinkers. This was held at the Periyar Thidal, with the office bearers of the Tamilnadu Rationalist Forum playing a very active role. In fact, the leader of Dravida Kazhagam, Dr.K.Veeramani, though was preoccupied with some other program that day, had seen to it that all the arrangements were made for the meeting. V. Kumaresan the General Secretary of the Rationalist Forum, Prince Periyar, the young dynamic secretary of the organisation, and Dr. Ezhilan were the prime movers for the whole program. Babu Gogininei the Executive director of IHEU, spoke on the occassion. Dr. Ganesh Veluswami, the President of Chennai Freethinkers, and Bala, were the active workers from the Chennai Freethinkers. We had very good interactions and it was a sort of bridge between the two set ups- the well-organised Tamilnadu Rationalist Forum and the budding young enthusiasts of the Chennai Freethinkers. After the formal meeting we had an informal interaction outside the hall and various ideas were exchanged about furthering the movement in Tamilnadu particularly, among the middle-class and professionals in Chennai.

Related posts:

1. Freethought News: Weeping Mary (Mathavu) to be Investigated by Rationalists (Video)
2. Deepak Chopra: A New Age Shaman (Watch Video)
3. Watch BBC Video: Supernatural Revealed in India
4. Critical Thinking: A Video By QualiaSoup On Youtube
5. Tribute to Indian Atheists, Parts – I and II (Video)
6. Basava Premanand Video: Posted on youtube by Sajith C of Science Trust

On the 8^th of June we went to a place, sorry the place for Nadi Jotidam- the Vaitheeswarn Kovil at Chidambaram about 250 kms from Chennai. Our team consisted of Gareth the producer, Brendon his son, Gurmith the photographer, Savitri Choudahry the arranger, Dr. Ganesh and I. We had cooked up a  story for the astrologers- that Gareth was a wealthy textile tycoon and Savitri was his guide for all India, Ganesh for Tamilnadu and I for Karnataka. We were appropriately dressed for the occasion with large vermillion mark on the forehead and me in a long Khadi jiiba to hide my physique which would have made them suspicious of my claim to a poor retired laboratory technician now working as a tourist guide.

Horoscope book for Manjunath with the the cell number to be contacted for any future advice.

The minute we alighted from our cars a horde of unsavoury characters descended on us with offers to have our leaves read and claims that theirs was the only genuine Nadi Jotisham! The moment we fell into the clutches of one and followed him, there were a few snide remarks from others that we were in the hands of a fraud and they were the real genuine ones! Ignoring them we went to the consultation chambers of Govi Jayaraman whose offices were appropriately situated between the elephant shed and the tonsure shed outside the temple.

On entering, the big boss, the textile tycoon was given a royal welcome thanks to his large hat and white skin. I, the poor man, was taken to a smaller room as my reading would be done as an afterthought! The tycoon generously offered to pay for my consultation too. They conducted a due search for the ‘leaves’ belonging to each of us. When queried as to where they came from, were told that the temple was the source for all of the Nadi leaves. Every morning they would visit the temple and obtain the leaves of all those who were preordained to visit them and it was inevitable that those who were to arrive would do so! A really wonderful explanation for anything that could happen! However, they were prepared for any unforeseen things by saying that even the gods could sometimes make mistakes and there could be some. So, all the blame could be transferred onto someone else. It did not matter that even if that were to be a deity.

A preliminary round showed that both of our leaves were there, and a preliminary reading was done following which they said that a detailed report would follow in a few hours. We were asked to go for lunch and be back. The textile tycoon was being charged Rs. 3000 for his reading while the poor guide only 1500. When asked for the difference we were told that my reading was for Agastya Nadi while his was for Shiva Nadi, not withstanding that he had told me a couple of minutes ago that it was my Shiva Nadi that would be read.

Actual horoscope written by the 'mentor' in the photo below

When we went after lunch two separate readings were arranged for us- the master and the servant. The master was told a lot of things about him which hitherto were unknown to him. He was a womanizer and quite few other things too! But, it was nothing he did in this life that was the cause, it was his past life! He, as a Brahmin in Srilanka in his past life, had impregnated a servant woman. When it was discovered she was poisoned to death. It was this sin of his past life that was weighing heavily upon him in this life too and making him do all the bad things that he was doing. He was promised a solution too.

When we had arrived to visit the temple, we were directed to this place to have our leaves read. So it was quite obviuos that there was a cozy symbiotic relationship between the priests and these Nadi Jotishs. How could he forget them? His solution was to perform appropriate pujas in the temple the way they should be! Of course, they were to be done by a person whom the priest knew very well. The rich white man was told to make the payment in advance and the offerings would be sent to him by post at regular intervals as prescribed.

Me(Manjunath), my mentor and the leaves with all details past and present of my life. The tape recorder in the picture was used to make a recording which I could keep for my future reference!

While it was that way for the master it was a little different for the servant. I assumed the identity of my brother in law Manjunath (my sister in laws husband) who had passed away on the 30^th of April this year. The way they were trying to get the info was quite interesting and not a very good example of cold reading. For example they would tell you that your name starts with certain alphabets and when you deny they would ask some other question about whether your father used a wear a cap and your mother a sari. After getting responses and some more details they would come back and ask whether your name starts with some other alphabets. Here since I had unwittingly revealed my name, or that was the impression I gave, they went directly into other details.

With some encouragement from me the reader started delivering the usual rigmarole that they do. When I expressed fears about my health he told me that I would live upto the age of 80 and enjoy very good health till then. I did not have as colorful a past life as my master had. I was a poor Brahmin at Palakkad and had died at the age of 40 in my past life. However, I was promised that the problems could be solved very easily by performing pujas for a long period. As usual I was told he has friends in the temple that would be glad to do them for a suitable price and no fraud. I was also assured that it would be seen to that the offerings made to the gods on my behalf would be sent by post as prescribed.

Though I was sorely tempted to confront them and expose their fraud I had been told specifically by the producers of the program that we should not do so. However, the modus operandi was very clear- get the victim to give them the needed info and then whatever that could not be gathered would be elicited either by the process of elimination or deduction. So much for the glowing reports on how they gave in writing all the events of the past including the names of one’s parents, grandparents etc. The process of obtaining the information is so obvious that it only a dimwit could not figure it out. It is my feeling that the people who go in for this do so with expectations and accept the things said without question. As noted, they force people to wait in rooms, which may be wired for picking up hints from their conversations.

When we went around the temple we saw hordes of people waiting for pujas and rituals to ward of the ill effects of the planets in which this temple is said to specialize, squalling infants being brutally shaved bald in a ritual signifying the first tonsure. There are a variety of touts who would even tell you to get the rituals done paying them at a discounted rate, rather than getting them performed by paying the so called “official rates” at the office! Ganesh, who had come with me, tried to have some secret confabulations with them as he was supposed to be the tourist guide of the rich man. They told him that he should have informed them before and they would see to it that he was paid a handsome commission.

The fine print or rather blurred print

The modus operandi is quite clear- keep on hammering until you hit the nail on the head. Exploit the credulity of the person and play it by ear. The things put in writing are those put in after the cold reading is done. So, the client is given an impression that all details are put into writing in minutes. The gullible people fall for this nonsense, pay through their nose and get into problems. The solutions they propose are not as innocuous as they seem. They also venture in the realm of the so-called “black magic” and many times cause rifts between close friends and relatives by telling them that black magic has been done by someone close to them through friendship or through relation by blood or marriage. Often, though not always, it is the poor who fall into the clutches of such people and lose their hard earned money. In case of the rich textile tycoon, they could see that he was wealthy, a foreigner who fancies things Indian. They were even fooled about the professional videographer when they were told that he would like to present the videos of his travels to his wife!

In my case they could make out that I was a man with problems- the image that I was trying to project- and treated me accordingly inventing problem after problem for my three children- the eldest a motor mechanic in Dubai, the second who married a lower caste girl and my daughter whose marriage got cancelled because of his indiscretions! The secret is to prepare a nice story beforehand and go with details ready in mind. Better select a date of birth near to your own and of someone of the opposite gender or who is no more. This is so that there will be no confusion about the star and signs of the zodiac. Some of them may be clever enough. The leaves before them have things in writing probably in code language and I suspect these are questions already kept ready to hint for step by step questioning to elicit the proper answers needed to do the “readings”. I could make out that they are not expert cold readers either.

We also went to one more Nadi Jotish at a place near Chennai , the details of which I am not free to disclose as something else is being planned for him. In contrast to his poor cousins on the streets and huts, he was sitting in a house with air conditioning and a number of people around whom he said were his interns. Their looks and mannerisms however were more befitting that of practitioners of the so-called “world’s oldest profession”. So, much for the accurate ‘science’ of Nadi Jotidam.

Hoarding of the super bazar of Nadi

Related posts:

1. The ‘Exact Science’ Of Nadi Jothidam
2. Sai Baba: A Whiff of Fraud
3. My Name is Swami Baba and I am Not a Fraud

Claim 1:

Baba Ramdev claims that he suffered from paralysis of the left side of his body during childhood and that his life changed after he read Rishi Dayanand and autobiographies of many great people [See]. Great!

Have a close look at hisvideo.

His right forehead has no wrinkles and his right eye does not wink as much as the left side. (Another video of the same problem is also providedherefor comparison)

These findings are suggestive of lower motor neurone paralysis of the right facial nerve, also called Bell’s palsy. It varies in severity and in many, it recoveres spontaneously, fully or partly. The lower motor neurone paralysis of the facial nerve is an isolated,. local problem, not associated with paralysis of the other parts of the body. (Paralysis of one half of the body, called hemiplegia, is associated with an upper motor neurone type of facial palsy, wherein the forehead wrinkling and closure of eyelids remain unaffected). In Ramdev’s case, the right LMN facial palsy appears to have recovered partially. He DOES NOT have any evidence of left sided paralysis. His claim of a left sided paralysis is a lie and it also shows his total ignorance of simple medical facts.

Claim 2:

Ramdev claims that he luckily met Ācārya Balkrishna, ‘a kindred soul and a schoolmate’, at the Gangotri caves of lofty Himalayas, where both were on a ‘similar quest’. [See1,2]

Balakrishna instead is alleged to be a criminal on the run from Nepal and is being investigated for procuring a fake Indian passport and for violating the Arms Act.[See1,2]

Claim 3:

While Ramdev claims that he has earned a postgraduate (Ācārya) degree with specialization in Sanskrit Vyākarana, Yoga, Darśana, Vedas and Upanisads, Balakrishna goes further by claiming to be a simple and unassuming versatile genius who is a great scholar of Āyurveda, sanskrit language and grammar, and the Vedas with a postgraduate (Ācārya) degree from Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi.[See1,2]

In India, formal education in Ayurveda involves four and a half years of training followed by one year of internship, leading to the award of BAMS degree. Neither Ramdev nor Balakrishna have any such qualification. Yet they have been allowed to prescribe treatments for various ailments and also to manufacture, market and dispense several products which they claim are based on Ayurveda. The Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi does not offer any post graduate courses in Ayurveda [Sources:SSVand my discussion with the PIO, SSV at+91-9415201031]. It is not clear as to what post graduation did the ‘great scholar’ Balakrishna do at this institute.

Claim 4:

Ramdev and Balakrishna duo claim of post graduation and such expertise in yoga that they have taken upon themselves the ‘onerous responsibility of demystifying and popularizing Patañjali’s yoga and ayurveda’ through television channels and camps that are attended by thousands. [See]

But the self proclaimed scholar appears to be clumsy in perfoming even a simple asana as is evident in this video grab of Vakrasana. [See]

Compare it with another video, showing the correct method of performing the same Vakrasana.[See]

So much for the Gurus’ Yoga Vidya Parinati!

Claim 5:

With their self proclaimed genius and scholarly knowledge in Yoga and Ayurveda, they claim to have cured lacs of patients [See Balakrishna's claim] (or crores?See Ramdev’s claim) of a ‘number of stubborn, chronic and incurable diseases like diabetes, rheumatism, osteo-arthritis, gout (rheumatism and arthritis), migraine, cervical spondylitis, respiratory disorders, asthma, cancer, nervous disorder, heart disease, brain diseases, etc!’ It is also claimed that ‘these successful treatments have been documented by Ācāryaji in his renowned book: Yoga In Synergy With Medicial Science.’[See] The duo also claim that whatever experiments they have done so far prove that yoga can be a solution for all the problems of the world and that there will be heaven on earth. [See]

But where is the evidence? No where in the above mentioned book or in the lists of the so called research publications of the duo one would find any evidence supporting such grandiose claims..[See1,2] And the duo have no respect for numbers: lacs or crores simply do not matter!

Claim 6:

Baba Ramdev claims to have ‘a vision to make a disease free world through a scientific approach to Yoga and Ayurveda, to establish a new World Health Organisation, to fulfill the resolution of making a new world order free from disease and medicine, to propagate Pranayam as a “free” medicine for the treatment of diseases round the globe, making the world a peaceful and tranquil place by using Yogic techniques to eradicate fatal effects of medicines’ etc. [See]

But his Divya Pharmacy manufactures and sells about 285 drugs and other products at nooks and corners of the country! [See] The total turnover from these sales, as per his own admission, is about 1100 crores! [See] And there have been reports of immense suffering and even deaths following the use of his drugs and remedies. [See1,2]

Claim 7:

Baba Ramdev claims to tread a path of transparency! [See].

But several allegations of amassing assets worth thousands of crores and grabbing land have been levelled against him. [See1,2,3,4] and the enforcement directorate and income tax dept. are now probing these issues.[See1,2]

Claim 8:

Baba Ramdev claims that non-political life is one of the norms of good conduct.[See].

Yet details of his close association wth RSS/VHP/BJP are fast emerging! [Video - Ramdev VHP Secret meeting;Report].

Claim 9:

Baba Ramdev claims that always staying calm and being devoid of an arrogance as his Work Philosophy[See] and that daily practice of yoga not only gives good health but also develops healthy thoughts, attitude, positive mind and develops good qualities and that a healthy and sensitive mind and body will be free from all kinds of violence, casteism, regionalism, communal differences and gradually there shall be more of harmony, love, peace, humanism, sense of service, empathy and tolerance in this world. [See] Moreover, as a Yoga Guru he is expected to have attained Chittha Vritthi Nirodha as well.

But he has now warned of violence and threatened to train an army of 11,000 followers! [See1,2,3] And his demand for death penalty for offenders of corruption is also indicative of his violent mindset. [See1,2]

Claim 10:

Chittha Vritthi Nirodha with yoga?

Both Ramdev and Balakrishna broke down after being shunted out of Ramlila maidan. [See1,2]

Related posts:

1. Yogi In Politics: A Rationalist’s Thoughts On Baba Ramdev
2. The ‘Baba Ramdev’ Movement And The Gandhi Family: A Litmus Test Of Lokpal Efficacy
3. Baba Brahmachari- Part II
4. My Name is Swami Baba and I am Not a Fraud
5. A Rationalist Exposing Fraudulent Paranormal Claims – The Ones That Ran Away
6. Brahmachari Baba and the ‘Supernatural’ Powers

Such a defense disregards a wider sociological understanding of the human condition and ignores the underlying causes of poverty. By their very nature religious groups and organizations conspire to perpetuate the conditions that they claim to solve. But addressing the Sai Baba apologists on this issue is for the most part a futile task. It requires a cursory knowledge of psychology and economics as well as the time and ability for sustained attention to complex, non-intuitive ideas.

So instead, in this post I employ a simple comparison to make my point.

And let’s not forget, Bill Gates is an Atheist.

Related posts:

1. Is Criticism Of Religion And Superstition Hurting Indian Culture?
2. Self-Deception As A Coping Mechanism Among Victims Of The Sai Baba Cult
3. My Name is Swami Baba and I am Not a Fraud
4. Baba Brahmachari- Part II
5. A Critical Look At Baba Ramdev’s Claims
6. Brahmachari Baba and the ‘Supernatural’ Powers

Ordinary mortals in critical condition need life support systems, but why does a so-called God-man need them?

“I do not suffer from any kind of disease because there is no trace of greed in Me. That is why I am always healthy…” (Sanathana Sarathi September 2001, page 257f) 186)

Purity, patience and perseverance. With these three you are bound to acquire good health and bliss. You may believe it or not. But the truth is that these three are responsible for my health (Arogya) and bliss (Ananda)” (Sanathana Sarathi July 1995, p. 173).

Well it is said that it is bad to hit a man who is down. But, the same does not apply to God himself! Today, the God of Puttaparthi Bhagwan Sri Satya Sai Baba, whose real name happens to be Satya Narayana Raju is in the ICU on a ventilator and other such life support systems. While ordinary mortals like us require such things, one always wonders why a God should need all those? In fact, the newspaper reports have stated that at one point of time there were 27 doctors attending on him! Certainly these doctors are not any ordinary ones but those with a roaring practice considered quite competent in their field. One wonders what is happening to their other patients when they are all busy attending on this God. Anyway, it is a wonder as to why someone whose miraculously materialized holy ash or vibhuti and has allegedly cured thousands of people from various diseases from Arthritis to Zollinger’s syndrome has to be attended on by mundane humans! Is it that as many claim, one’s own medicine does not work on oneself?

This 85 year old god started his career as a small time prestidigitator ‘materialising’ things like sweets for his school mates. He also claimed to be an avatar of the Shirdi Sai Baba who is a much revered saint from the eponymous place in Maharashtra. However, he was not allowed to step into that place! The temple there is a very prosperous one and those controlling that would have been certainly scared of him taking over the place! Starting with small time miracles like materialising things such as small trinkets and vibhuti or holy ash, he soon moved to the big leagues. He started with his present headquarters in Andhra Pradesh called Puttaparthi, which grew from a small village to the major pilgrimage center that it is now with its own airport and railway station. He started attracting devotees from all over the world particularly from the very materialistic West and those people who were spiritually minded, and started his missions all over the world. As his fame grew, politicians from India started flocking to him probably seeing him as a store house for their ill-gotten black money. These so called ashrams of these alleged godmen are a major store house for the ill-gotten wealth of these politicians and a source of corruption too. It would be very appropriate to bring these too under scrutiny of the to-be-drafted Lokpal Bill! However, one can be sure that this will not be done as many such are the supporters of Anna Hazare, the new middle class messiah. His supporters have managed to keep away whom they call corrupt politicians but the same yardstick has not been applied to such so -called godmen!

Click here to view the embedded video.

More than anything this so-called god has been ascribed many miracles. There are numerous biographies of him, or rather hagiographies, crediting him with a plethora of miracles. One should take a look at these as they are what he calls his visiting cards. His most famous ‘miracle’ of materialising holy ash or vibhuti has been exposed innumerable times with video clips all over the web making their rounds. A series made by the Channel IV called Guru Busters that exposed how this trick is done with a pellet of ash hidden in between the fingers and crushed with the rotation of the palm. This has been ascribed miraculous powers by many of his gullible devotees which include eminent physicians too! In fact one such person has gone on record claiming that her patients had been maintained on doses of this panacea. It has been claimed to cure a variety of disorders of organic and functional origin. It has been credited with providing solutions to a number of family, social and probably national problems too. This holy ash however is the present to ordinary mortals who flock to Puttaparthi for a glimpse of their god.

The VIPs who visit him are presented with a variety of trinkets like rings, chains and such. However, all the objects which he claims to materialize can be easily hidden in a closed fist and then this is rotated to make it appear as if the object is appearing from thin air. He has been caught in this act many times particularly in video footage by Doordarshan the national channel controlled by the government, when he tried to ‘materialise’ a gold chain from under a memento at a function held at Hyderabad in the presence of the then Prime Minister of India P.V.Narasimha Rao and a number of other VIPs. He wanted to show the whole nation his greatness by getting the same broadcast on the national news to snub his detractors. On the contrary, this video footage showed clearly his modus operandi! This was noticed by an editor of the footage and it was not broadcasted. But, the same was obtained by our movement and started making its rounds all over the country and is now on youtube too. The very same happened to his regurgitation of a gold Shiva lingam on Shivaratri, when he used to bring out the object hidden in a towel, put into his mouth under the pretext of wiping his face and making it appear as if it was coming from his stomach. It was claimed that his body contains a lot of gold which comes out as these lingams. On a particular occasion in 2004 when BBC was filming this, the lingams failed to ‘materialise’ and he vomited some bile. His devotees claimed that what used to come out as solid has emerged as a liquid this time! That was the last time he tried this trick.

Likewise, he has been credited with bringing back to life dead people, converting water into petrol, sand into Bhagavdgita, many different types of fruits from a single tree and many such “miracles”. However, not one of them has been corroborated by independent witnesses or under experimental conditions. He has been challenged innumerable times by us to let his so called miracles be investigated, or perform them under experimental conditions after scrutiny. Abraham Kovoor from Sri Lanka was one of the first to publicly challenge him. Dr.H.Narasimhaiah, a former vice chancellor of the Bangalore University, had constituted a committee for the scientific investigation of so called miracles in the 1970s and had written to him asking for those to be performed under controlled conditions. He had explained that as a physicist he could not believe that something could come from nothing and had requested him to be a subject for an experiment to verify his so-called materialization of things from thin air. He was met at first with silence and was then subjected to vicious personal attacks.

Later Premanand took on this so-called godman by performing his so-called miracles in public and explaining the tricks behind them. He trained thousands of volunteers to perform these and they started doing these all over the country to demonstrate to the common man how they are done. Now, I am continuing this work at the national and international levels giving these demonstrations and training thousands on how these tricks are done. We have laid down challenges to anyone claiming to have such powers, to come forward and perform them under controlled conditions and win huge awards. But so far none has come forward.

Sai Baba’s devotees defend him by pointing to the so-called charitable work which he has been doing. They don’t realize that the whole thing is a facade behind which a huge empire thrives. This is now said to be in billions and there is a big struggle to seize control over it. On one hand there are his relatives who want to take over everything, while on the other there is the trust which has many so called VIPs including retired judges and other bureaucrats. He has also many public figures in the list of his devotees. Now that he is on his death bed these have been threatening to come out into the open. One of reasons why he has been kept away from the public is that all the legalities have to be done when he is alive. If he has not made any will and the whole empire is in his name, then his family will inherit it all! On the other hand if he has made one bequeathing his property to the Trust, he has to live for a year after making one. One has every reason to suspect that he has been kept on life support systems to wait for an appropriate time to switch it off. No one is allowed to see him because of this. Occasional reports are put out that he is improving just for public satisfaction. It would be the best if all his properties be taken over by the government and used for the public purpose they were supposedly intended for. The claimants for the assets should not have any objections to that! Anyway, none of it is his personal property. They are all built from the contributions from the public.

By the time this comes into your hands I am sure that things would have reached a stage where state intervention will be needed. What is made from public contributions for supposedly charitable purposes, should be used for that purpose only. His super specialty hospitals, educational institutions and such are all for such purposes and should be put to such uses only. This would prevent any ugly turn of events and will also be a way to satisfy his devotees who supposedly number in the millions.

Related posts:

1. Nationalise The Assets Of The Godman Of Puttaparthi

Though I term this a dialogue, most of the communication is from my side, since it is not the easiest of tasks to engage a die-hard religious believer or spiritualist into an examination of his or her positions or opinions. This exchange consists of 3 parts:

• The first part is my satirical response to Shri Mehta’s initial challenge that throws spotlight on the practice of fancy notions and high-sounding terms passing for serious thought and intellectualism.
• The second part is the indirect and evasive response of Shri Mehta, that leaves a lot of things unsaid and unexplored.
• The third part is my rejoinder to Shri Mehta’s email that examines the many aspects of the sorry state of thought and intellectualism that pervades today’s spiritual study groups and religious cults.

Part 1
From: (Ranganath R., email withheld)

Subject: Reponse to the question of conception of reality and spiritual concerns
To: cmbakersfield@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011, 6:12 PM

Dear Anilji,

This is to further arguments and debate we had in your  last week’s  lecture on Bhagavad Gita Chapter IX. I missed the opportunity of responding fully to the question on reality as conceived in Hindu scriptures.

To your question “What is the nature of ‘Ultimate Reality’ according to you?”, here is my reply below in quotes:

“Ultimate Reality is that which arises from or comes after ‘Penultimate Reality’, after passing through ‘Absolute Reality’, which lies between these two realities. If it is asked what is ‘Penultimate Reality’, it is clear that it is that reality which follows intermediate reality which again flows from immediate reality, which is a super-imposition of initial reality upon indeterminate reality, which also proceeds from secondary reality and is derived from primary reality which with we are familiar in our day-to-day life. Also we arrive at this knowledge of Ultimate Reality when we keep beating around the bushes of self-realization and spiritual evolution. When we focus the light of inner knowledge on the true self and erase the distinction between the self and the non-self, Ultimate Reality becomes a projection of true knowledge reflecting its light on the canvass of inner-most ideas and thoughts of sublime existence. Thus in this grand flight of spiritual journey, we pass from primary reality to Ultimate reality on the wings of nonsense and empty rhetoric”

Would you agree that this explanation makes the understanding of Ultimate Reality very clear?! Come on! There is very little that can beat this explanation for its sheer clarity and simplicity.

After I marvel a wee bit at my own creativity and sick humor, it is time to pose some serious questions.

Do you really think that composing words like ‘Bhuta-Bhrinnah’, ‘Vikshepa’, ‘Avarana’, ‘Brahm-Gyan’, Bramhanand’ or other such words in Sanskrit (which is a notoriously vague and equivocating language) can make or turn nonsense into great knowledge or profound philosophy? As far as I can see, it is easy to pass off bullshit in Sanskrit (Hindu revivalists and nationalists have obviously learned no lessons from the near extinction of this language) because of its tendency to have more sound and pomp than real substance. If verses in Chapter IX of BG sound like complicated nonsense, that’s what they probably are, however well you may adorn them in ornate Sanskrit or confound its English translations with the noise, smoke and bluster of jargon and circular reasoning.

I did not realize that the knowledge (if at all it can be called that) in religious scriptures needs to have the secrecy and mystery of the formulas and workings of nuclear weaponry or space technology, because if precious concepts like Brahman and Atman are revealed easily and in simple terms there would be catastrophe, nuclear holocausts and worse in this world. So such sublime concepts like consciousness, self-realization, highest truth, ultimate reality etc. need to be saved from falling into wrong hands by wrapping them in several layers of abstract prose and symbolism, to unravel which we must fall and cringe at the feet of orange or white robed geniuses, who go by many names of maharishis, gurus, swamis, pastors, popes, cardinals, maulas, acharyas etc.

It is not as if skeptics and freethinkers cannot talk the lingo of spiritual jargon and fancy words that mean very little, or see through all this charade of intellectual deception. We can condemn and criticize up-to a point, but the sheer scale of bigotry and nonsense in religion and spirituality is so staggering that one can only pity the shallowness and conceit of religious and spiritual delusion.

Regards

Part 2 (Response form Shri Anil Mehta of Chinmaya mission)

Dear Ranganath,

Hari Om.  Thank you for your comments.  However, I would like to remind you that our Sunday Study Group is based on the Bhagvad Geeta as expounded by Swami Chinmayananda.  The Chinmaya Mission philosophy is based on Advaita philosophy as explained by Bhagwan Sankaracharya and Swami Chinmayananda.  If you attend the study class, please confine your comments to these philosophers and concepts.  We do not have time to discuss all other ideas and concepts of philosophy.

Thank you.

Anil Mehta

Part 3 (Response to Anil Mehta’s email)

Dear Anilji,

Thanks for the courtesy of a reply. But the contents of the email were a disappointment, since it was conspicuously lacking in a response to the core issues raised in my email.

Your statements reminded me of the incident in the history of British Parliament where the great essayist Joseph Addison was unfairly taunted thus.

“Thrice did he conceive, yet produced nothing!”

Balakrishna Menon, aka Chinmayananda, who was the inspiration for the Chinmaya Mission.

While Addison can justifiably be pardoned for his tentativeness in the face of an illustrious assembly with perhaps the greatest of orators arrayed on its ranks and flanks, one can only wonder at the motivations that could inspire the reticence of your 3 terse and parsimonious lines on a medium such as email, which lets one lay one’s heart and soul bare, in open communication, unhindered by the mortifications of personal contact and the inconvenient conventions of polite conversation.

Such apparent frugality of words and meaning obliges me into an email treatise of decipherment where, rejoinders apart, I will try to speculate on the intent of such indirect and evasive language.

Should expositions of BG by spiritual celebrities be taken at their face value?

To state that Chinmaya Mission is based on the Bhagavad Gita expounded by Swami Chinmayananda is a stale fact to someone who has participated in these sessions over a period of close to 2 years.

It also well-known that apart from Chinmayananda, Prabhupada, Sivananda and many other known and unknown religious cult-figures have made their expositions of this scripture. There are not many differences of note in their interpretations. They all start with some form of scriptural literalism, then proceed to sanitize their theories from anything that may be perceived as unfavorable to the scripture by employing the most exaggerated symbolism (‘rope and ‘snake’, ‘ocean and waves’, wind, storms, ‘fire and the sky’ etc.) and then proceed to committing the ultimate fallacy of confusing metaphor for reality and continuing on that train of thought forever.

None of these pontiffs have cared to look at what History seeks to convey about the origins of Brahman, that is supposedly the ultimate object of the Gita’s teachings. When Gita and its revered expounders invoke the authority of Vedas to expound and establish the supremacy of Brahman, do they know or care that there are hardly any clear references to the Brahman in either Rig Veda or Yajur Veda? Atharva Veda makes a reference to Brahman, but interestingly Rig Veda does not even consider Atharvaveda as its companion, as its references are only to Yajurveda and Samaveda.

Proper study of history will again point to the Brahman as the mischief created by the Upanishads that were responding to the pressures on Vedic religion and ritualism posed by the challenge of heterodox movements like Buddhism, Jainism, Lokayatika, Ajivakas etc.

Just like Brahman, it may be interesting to note that Moksha also figures nowhere in the primary Vedas, and its inclusion in the Upanishadic texts is an almost straight lift from the Buddhist and Jain concepts. There is also a plausible allegation of Brahminical mischief in inserting selected Upanishads as footnotes to the two major Veda texts (Rig Veda & Yajurveda) and appropriating Vedic authority for not only Upanishads, but the Brahmanas, Dharma Sutras and the Brahma Sutra. Any sincere student who does a comparative study of the Vedas and Upanishads, referring to normal rules of semantics and interpretation will find them to be like chalk and cheese. These two seem totally distinct texts living in their own disparate philosophical worlds, with the only link being the vague allegorical references in Upanishads to Vedic entities like Indra, Yama and Prajapati, which are most likely the handiwork of later Upanishadic authors and editors.

Many of the modern commentators of the Gita and the Advaita have largely paid no regard to the historical and cultural perspectives on these holy texts of antiquity. But we don’t necessarily have to adopt such a head-in-the-sand attitude

Given this, the question I seek an answer to is, whatever may be the exposition of Chinmayananda, what is the true aim of a study group or session?. Is it to interpret a scripture with a mind and attitude that is open and receptive to the findings of varied disciplines and knowledge streams or is it cling on to dogmatic interpretations of spiritual celebrities under the pretext of reverence and authority?.

Also is the expectation from the study group then to be merely rubber-stamping the conclusions already reached by their adopted hero Chinmayananda by swaying to the rhythms of the more than 60 minute monologues of its chief officiating speaker?

Is Chinmaya Mission really based on the Advaita philosophy of Adi Sankara?

Let us look at your statement that Chinmaya Mission’s philosophy is based on the Advaita philosophy of ‘Bhagawan’ Sankaracharya.

My comments were not in any way related to the philosophy of the Mission. Besides I fail to see the real connection between the objective of a study group that is focused on a specific scripture and the broad philosophy of its institutional sponsor, to this debate. Propounding the mission’s philosophy would be better served by seminars and fund-raising events that are anyway a larger staple of your Mission, than any diligence to adhere to Advaitic confines and concerns. But I will let that pass.

Let’s examine the merits of this statement of yours. Is your Mission really based on or adhering to the Advaita philosophy? One would have thought that, as true heirs to the legacy of Advaita, you would all be long in the process of shedding your silken robes and ethnic fashion wear and preparing for the bequest of the palatial ‘Chinmaya Gokul’ to heretics like us.

On a serious note, how is your Mission following in the footsteps of the Advaita philosophy?

• By plastering the walls of your Mission with the portraits and pictures of Adi Sankara, in the limited space that is ceded by the giant and larger-than-life size portraits of Chinmayananda and Tejomayananda?
• By selling books on Adi Sankara’s teachings, where one book is barely distinguishable from another?
• By displaying in bold type-faces, some selected quotations of Adi Sankara?
• By organizing and sponsoring seminars and study sessions on Advaita and Tattva Bodha?
• By group-singing and chanting of ‘Bhaja Govindam’?

How about following the teachings of Advaita on the futility of rituals and pujas and their irrelevance to spiritual goals, or even self-improvement in a religious sense?. Going by the gusto with which meaningless rituals and pujas are organized on Ganesh Chaturthi, Mahashivaratri, Laxmi Puja, Rama Navmi, and innumerable other Hindu cultural events organized by the Mission, one fails to see any inclination to meaningfully or consistently follow the Advaita philosophy.

Most of the popular rituals and pujas of present day Hinduism have no origins or basis in the primary Vedic texts and are the creations/inventions of what is called the Puranic age, where the greatest possible distortions of many texts and scriptures are inferred to have taken place with history, culture, fact and fable mixed into the narratives in the most bizarre manner.

Chinmaya Mission at Bakersfield, California. Over 300 such missions are operational worldwide.

The Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj have a far better track record of acting on the spirit of the philosophy and teachings of Advaita, though they don’t formally declare any allegiance to Advaita or Adi Sankara, than all the empty declarations made by Chinmaya Mission.

If really following the Advaita philosophy means building ‘castles in the air’ around the definition of the Brahman as the one and only unchanging ultimate reality beneath which lies the illusion of constantly changing appearances and motions of the physical and transient world, where the ‘rope and the snake’ play the game of ‘snakes and ladders’ with our deluded senses, where Rishis, Gurus and Swamis play the great ‘Indian rope trick’ or tighten the hangman’s noose of ‘Self-Realization’ on bewildered devotees and followers, who are made to walk the ‘tight rope’ of avoiding ‘sense-objects’ and senseless objects in crossing the ‘transmigratory ocean of existence’, then selling such spiritual snake oil concoctions through speeches, books, seminars, study sessions and what not and misguiding and cheerleading innocent, gullible and earnest seekers of religion alike into a ‘wild-goose chase’ of the Brahman, certainly Chinmaya Mission is in the forefront of that Advaita revolution.

Relevant objections and comments being dismissed as irrelevant.

In addition you have made your third statement in such a way that it is hard to say whether it is a factual claim or an insinuation about the nature of my comments.

You say that if I do attend the Gita study session, I must confine my comments to the philosophers ( Chinmayananda & Sankaracharya) and concepts (Bhagavad Gita & Advaita) mentioned by you.

Since you have introduced the word ‘If’, are you referring to my future visits and future comments? If so does that not make your statement hypothetical and thereby irrelevant?

If not, am I to infer that this comment of yours was based on your opinion that my comments on the study session of 2/5/2011 were not confined to the topics of your choice?

If that be case, your opinion cannot be considered to be based on facts, since my comments and responses were indeed confined to one of the above topics, though they may be treated as critical in nature and strident in tone and tenor. The comments were related to questioning the Advaitic thoery, and conception of the nature of reality and knowledge according to the so-called tenets of that theory. The specific points in my comments and questions on this related issue were:

• Questioning the suitability of the ‘rope and snake’ metaphor and its irrelevance to the question of interpreting reality.
• Pointing out the fallacies of the nature of Advaitic conception of knowledge which seems to fail even most basic tests of reason and empirical inquiry.
• Trying to reason that Consciousness has no real bearing on a comparison of illusion and reality.

There were 2 other interjections of note from me:

• Commenting on the progression of the content of Mahabharata from 8000 verses to its current approx 100K verses, it was a response to your attempt to foist pseudo-history and myth in form of spontaneous narration of 100K verses by Veda Vyasa. How is this, a transgression of the scope of the Study session unless it be the explicit aim of the study to consider truth and history to be unnecessary hindrances to the grand scheme of spiritual reverie and fantasy.

• Commenting on the need for rejecting the theory of divine revelation of BG and perceive its messages in light of reference to historical, social and cultural setting of the scripture. This is also germane or related to the topic of study and is only an appeal to use an alternative and rational method of analyzing verses from the scripture, not to submit to the brute force and appeal of authority and reputation (even if it is of such supposedly towering figures like Chinmayananda and Adi Sankara). Am I to be faulted if people generally have no interest in History and social sciences and even lack a historical sense in looking at things and events?

It will be instructive to me if you can explain how this can in any way be considered digressive and irrelevant.

Verse expositions in Chinmaya study group dragged on by distracted and recursive commentary

I concur with your concern that “We have no time for other ideas and concepts”, but for a different reason. If out of an allotted 75 minutes for a study, almost 60 minutes or more are taken up by your speeches, how will there be any time for anybody’s ideas and questions other than yours, forget about my other ideas and concepts!?

If the ritual of hashing and rehashing the banalities of advaitic and chinmayaspeak folklore such as…

• Vasanaas, their origins and uses and abuses
• The BMI (Body-Mind-Intellect) dichotomy, trichotomy and related myths
• The hierarchy of the soul and its many and varied encasings
• The legendary omnipresence and prevalence of Consciousness and its endless wonders, manifestations, infestations and incarnations
• Invocations, obituaries, homages, tributes to Chinmayananda along with recounting of his biography, travelogues, his superhuman feats of religious and cultural renaissance and his glorious ascent to the heights of sainthood and beyond

….is almost invariably sought to be squeezed into a verse exposition regardless of its context, applicability and relevance to the verse, it is no surprise that the strike-rate of verse exposition has gone down progressively. Where a year or two ago, 2 verses could be covered in an hour, now even 75 minutes do not suffice for one.

Who then is more digressive, recursive, repetitive and tangential in explaining the verses of Gita? You, the master of ceremonies, or your largely pliant and nodding audience on whom you heap the suffering of circumlocutory narration? I think it fit to be best left to your conscience and good sense to answer.

I apologize for taking so much of your time and attention. I conclude with the hope that some inclination to engage in a discussion and debate will eventually emerge from your side after taking into consideration the many points raised by me.

Regards

No related posts.

The first programme was attended by about 50 students most of whom were boys. The programme was well received and we received a good feedback too! The topics dealt were the same as that of what has been described below in detail during the 2^nd training programme.

One evening, during their tea time, we visited the men’s hostel and interacted with some of the residents in their dining hall. Most of the students of this group expressed a desire to work for the movement and some of them were 2^nd and 3^rd generation rationalists. They were pleased for having gained better knowledge required to defend their convictions and to expose claimants of supernatural powers.

The second training programme commenced on the 24^th of March and was a tremendous success.  The happenings at the 2^nd session were very interesting and requires to be elaborated. The group had about 60 girls while the number of boys was only around 20. The introductory session started with a heated discussion on a number of topics. On the first day we dealt with a very relevant topic – the role of irrational thinking on treatment of diseases, followed by discussions on quackery, the various method of treatment, systems of medicine and ‘so called’ systems of medicine. We showed them videos on a number of topics including quacks performing surgery, diagnosing diseases, treating the patients and so on. Few of them believed in homeopathy, ayurveda and so on, and these students had to be convinced about the irrationalities in these systems. The same evening we were invited to the ladies’ hostel dining hall for interactions followed by a question-answer session.

On the second day of the training programme I mentioned about “spiritualism” and some people took upon a challenge to predict things using their “spiritual” powers. I narrated an incident which happened about 7 years ago – when a science teacher with her students had told me that she could read the number on a sealed currency note by consulting spirits using a planchette. I narrated how she had miserably failed to do so. A girl among the trainees became very upset and told me that I should not talk lightly about such powers. When I retorted as to ‘what if?’ she said she had the power to predict things after summoning spirits. I asked her why not she demonstrate it in front of the assembled gathering and she agreed to do so.

I took out a 500 rupee currency note from my wallet, put it into an envelope and sealed it. I asked her to sign on the seams so that I could not replace it; few members from the audience were also invited to do the same. After this I put the envelope into my pocket and we dispersed for lunch. When we met at 2 pm after lunch this girl by name Shwetha was not to be seen! I had promised her that in case of her predicting the number correctly, all my property would be handed over to her! I had also asked her in front of the audience as to what she would do if she turned out to be wrong and she replied that she would do anything that I would tell her to do. I doubted if she became upset by this condition but her class mates assured me that she had gone to get the number after summoning the spirits. She appeared in about ten minutes time and told me that she had got the serial number of the sealed currency note by making use of her ‘spirtual’ power. As per my suggestion, she wrote the number on the board; and we were then photographed standing side-by-side with the number in between us. I informed her that if she was right, it was an event which could make waves all over the world and I would like this to be on record. She was very much pleased with this suggestion. I removed the sealed envelope containing the currency note from my pocket and asked two members of the audience who had signed on it to come and verify their signatures. The envelope was opened and the actual serial number written on the board and lo! None of the digits were tallying! I pointed out this to Shwetha and asked her as to what she had to say for this. She replied that there seemed to be some problem with the spirit that she summoned and perhaps it would not like to answer such frivolous questions. But, she insisted that it works and asked me for another question from the past which she would answer by making someone else summon the spirit. I readily agreed to it on one condition that the question be answered on the spot, without using any other means, in my presence on the dais in five minutes time.

She summoned some of her friends to get her ‘spiritual’ apparatus, which was a sheet of paper with alphabet and numbers written on it. I asked her to tell me the date, month and year of my birth.  I insisted that the answer had to be given then and there, and told her that I had to lay down this very strict condition as my date of birth could be easily obtained from the internet! She tried very hard to summon the spirits along with her friends but nothing happened! Then I had to ask her to live up to her side of the challenge. She admitted that her ‘spiritual’ experiments had failed and she was willing to do what I would tell her. I told her that ‘all that she had to do was to stop this spiritual nonsense, work for the movement when she had time and hence forward lead a rationalistic life’. She readily agreed to this and this was a very convincing demonstration which had a tremendous impact on the students. In fact on the last day, for the feedback she was a very enthusiastic rationalist, thanked me very much for being patient with her in showing her that her beliefs were wrong. She also pledged to work for the movement to create awareness among her family and friends about rational thinking!

We had one more live demonstration that involved summoning an outsider to the hall and predicting their past using my newly discovered ‘science’ of ‘Asstro numero palmistry’, during when I tell the unsuspecting subject that I have discovered this new science after three decades of research. This has been tried at many of the training programmes and has always been a hit. We start with the past and then go on to the future, when we predict some unpleasant event and then convince the victim to make some financial commitment for a ritual to ward it off! This worked so well here as well that many of the students were asking me for the magic formulae which I used to calculate the events in the lives of the subject! It was so convincing that none of the subjects were willing to accept that it was all bunkum and many of the trainees were unwilling to believe that there was absolutely no supernatural explanation for the very accurate predictions about the past of the subject!

In between lectures we had videos and demonstrations of so called ‘miracles’, and interactions on a number of topics of interest to the participants.

On the last day of the training programme, we had a group discussion in which the participants were divided randomly into groups and interacted on what they were going to do ‘to further the movement in their institution and the society’. One of them was elected as a group leader and she would read out their conclusions and also answer questions from the audience. During the first training programme, it was insisted that the group leader must be a female, but during the second training programme the girls dominated the proceedings so much that we had to request them to give a chance to the boys!

The first batch discussions were not very long, but during the second batch there was so much heated debate that we spent half-a-day on it. There were wide ranging topics right from how to change the thinking of family members and friends to change thinking in the society. Some of the National Service Scheme volunteers also narrated their experiences – when they had visited the villages for the surveys, they had to put up with the barbs from the people. There were incidents told about how they had tried to object to the irrational behaviour of their parents and other elders.

Both of the programmes concluded with many of the students claiming that their thinking had changed. Of course there have been exceptions! One of the girls from the first training programme said in her feedback that she was a theist and nothing could change that.

On the whole, the results had been very encouraging and this is for the first time that a university is trying such an experiment with their students on this scale in a very systematic manner. There are further such programmes planned during their vacations to motivate the staff members. Programmes have been planned for the faculty lasting for several days, and for the non-teaching staff, interactions for a full day. A five-day workshop has been planned for training interested students to develop skills in giving demonstrations on miracle exposure.

I have also received information that there have been some lively discussions post-training in the campus and many new members are keen to enlist themselves. The membership of the rationalist club has also gone up and they have a monthly meeting in which they have many relevant discussions on topics related to rational thinking.

Edited by Veena K.

Related posts:

1. Rationalist Club Of Periyar Maniammai University
2. Indian Rationalist Activist Narendra Nayak’s Programme for April-May, 2010
3. An Atheist In Periyar’s Land
4. ASTROLOGY & UGC – A Letter To The Vice Chancellor, Mangalore University
5. A Rationalist At The Registrar’s Office
6. Shooting A Rationalist Video in Tamilnadu

When I had visited their campus for the World Atheist Conference we had discussed about organising training programmes for the younger generation. The Vice Chancellor had instructed the Department of Periyar Studies of the University to conduct this programme. So, in collaboration with them, we decided to conduct a three-day workshop for their students, and the first one of the series was conducted for the 1^st year students as the other students were on holidays preparing for examinations.

On the 25^th we commenced with an inaugural speech by the Vice Chancellor who exhorted the students to live up to the ideals of Periyar and work for social causes and to improve the level of thinking of the common people. He was very happy that many young people had volunteered for the training. The inaugural session was followed by training sessions on various topics like the prevalent superstitions, unscientific systems of medicine, etc. The participants were initially very reluctant to participate but as the days went by they gradually begun to interact. The plan of action was to get them to interact about their mindset and then bring about a change in them, thereby motivate them into going into the field to influence the attitudes of the public. A few of them were already on-field, working among the people. One of them had been earlier trained by me a few years ago, and thereafter had been going to the people with the movie about Periyar. He had been visiting nearby villages with the DVD and a projector in the evening time, showing them the movie and then conducting Question-Answer sessions. Quite a few of the trainees were already members of the Rationalist Club and by the end of the training session a dozen more enlisted.

As a part of this programme we had plans to visit places each evening with the trainees, and have interaction with the public. On the evening of the first day no program could be arranged as the notice was too short. But the following evening we went to a suburb of the nearby town, Tanjavur, where we had interactions with the locals at a street corner meeting. The response was quite encouraging. On the third day, we had another such interaction and the response was quite good. On the third day, a valedictory function of our training programme was linked to another function – this was the prize distribution for a science competition held for the students of local schools by the Department of Periyar Studies of the University. The meeting was attended by the students and their parents. I was asked to address them, and I preferred an interaction on the so called ‘miracles, their demonstration and explanations’. There was very good response from the students and parents, and at the end of the session some time was given for feedback. I was totally surprised when a 12-year-old girl by name Cynthia came on the stage and said that she had believed in these miracles all along but this demonstration had opened her eyes and she would not believe in them any longer. It was very fulfilling to hear this from a child who spoke straight from the heart. There was another surprise from an older member of the audience who had been the subject for a demonstration on my ‘science’ of astro-numero-palmistry. During the programme I had asked for a volunteer, and since most of the non trainees around were the university staff who had no belief in this nonsense, one of the parents had volunteered. As usual I used the cold reading technique to ‘predict’ his past which he was made to admit was right! When he came on the stage after the programme he told me that he was happy that he could see the truth at least now, at the age of 46!

That same evening we visited an extension of a nearby town, Tanjavur, where we interacted with the public at a street corner meeting. The next day was 28^th February – the National Science Day. We decided to celebrate it by taking the trainees to a nearby village school at a place called Manjipatti. This was higher primary school and so, we decided to restrict the programme to the 10 plus age group. The response was superb- ‘subber’- in their words! The children were enthusiastic volunteers and our main problem was to restrict them from over-crowding the dais, which was a small area where the teacher stands to teach in front of the black board. But, once these children grow up, they are reluctant to come on stage when they are called – this is applicable to both boys and girls; more so in case of girls! At the end of the program when we asked them for the take home message they were very clear- question everything before you believe it – there are no ghosts, demons, spirits or black magic! It was very heartening to hear that from the higher primary school students of a village school!

The same afternoon we returned to Vallam and from there we came to Tiruchirappali where we had an interaction with the children of the high schools around the Periyar campus where the world atheist conference had been held a few weeks before. We had an excellent session and as usual in such schools the difficulty was to restrict the number of volunteers on the stage – when we wanted one, ten would come! The girls and boys were equally enthusiastic – the girls a bit more, probably because they were more in number! This was followed by a Question-Answer session during which we had quite a good number of doubts about rebirth, spirits, black magic and such. Even after the others dispersed, some children of the English medium section stayed on with their questions and doubts. It was a very satisfying interaction with these students.

The University Vice Chancellor, Dr. Ramachandran, was so pleased with the response of the students that he asked for repeats of the workshop for the other batches as well. The Department of Periyar Studies is ready to conduct them and have asked me for dates for two more batches; these dates have been fixed between the 21^st and 26^th of March 2011 at the same campus.

It was not only a great pleasure to conduct this programme but also to stay on the campus in which there is a lot of emphasis on environmentally-friendly-technology and recycling of waste. The barren land has been turned green by the university, which has planted various trees and other flora. The waste water is also recycled by charging a forty feet deep sump from where it percolates to the water table. The garbage is recycled.

Another pleasant thing was that the campus was free of all idols of gods and goddesses; there was no religious ceremony of any sort for any function. I had the occasion to attend their sports day inauguration which was without any invocation or prayer. Though not all the students are rationalists, they are not forced into any sort of ideology. They openly told me that many of them were believers in the supernatural. However, some of them changed their thinking after our interactions; and several became member of the Rationalist Club which was quite encouraging!

The next programmes will be for the seniors who have been on the campus for some years now, and we expect a better response from them!

Edited by Veena K.

Professor Narendra Nayak is the president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. He regularly tours the country giving presentations and holding training sessions and demonstrations to promote scientific temper and debunk frauds and godmen.

Related posts:

1. Second Rationalist Programme at Periyar Maniammai University, Vallam, Tamil Nadu.
2. An Atheist In Periyar’s Land
3. ASTROLOGY & UGC – A Letter To The Vice Chancellor, Mangalore University
4. Annual “Best Scientific Outlook Award” Ceremony And Rationalist Program
5. Shooting A Rationalist Video in Tamilnadu
6. A Rationalist At The Registrar’s Office

The importance of Chikmaglur lies in that the Saffron gang has taken a vow to make it the Ayodhya of the South by raising a dispute about a hill called Baba Budan Giri, now renamed Datta Peetha. An agitation has been started for the ‘liberation’ of the same, and an entirely new ritual has been invented, involving the wearing of a mala, known as a Datta mala, around their necks, visiting a certain spot on an appointed day each year and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At the appointed time the entire town becomes a fortress; educational institutions are closed to accomodate the thousands of police who must be present to protect the spot. Otherwise this is a peaceful place where Hindus and Muslims have been living side by side for centuries.

When a school in a place called Giriyapura in this district invited me to speak to their students about scientific temper on their annual school day, I gladly accepted the invitation. The Science Center of the district was also quite happy to arrange a program for the public in the evening. We decided to also hold a meeting of the rationalists in that area to start an organisation. So, it was already a multi-purpose visit. Then, one more agenda was added to the list. There were problems at a school on the way at a place called Kokradi, right in our district. In this school there were incidents of ‘spirit possession’, and the headmaster wanted me to come over and speak to his students and parents on these supposed events. So, we started for this place on the 14^th and arrived at the school in Kokradi.

This school is situated in idyllic surroundings on a hill and the locals had been taking a great interest in developing it. Since the gender-bias towards males in the town had resulted in the townsfolk sending the local boys to schools as far as 30 kms away for higher quality education, the students here were mainly girls and those boys whose parents could not afford the expenses of sending them to the supposedly better schools! The problems had started recently with some girls fainting in the school and behaving in a weird manner, as though they were ‘spirit possessed’! The solutions proposed were the usual ones of propitiating these spirits with appropriate rituals prescribed by the local shamans! However, since these did not work, the parents and teachers were in a quandary as to what could be done. A proposal was put forward seeking to invite me to the place to speak and educate them on these phenomena.

I had a two hour interaction with the students and their parents explaining to them how such things happen. I also demonstrated many so-called miracles, many of them on the girls who were supposedly affected by these ‘spirits’. The problem had been again aggravated by some reports in the local press that  had added spice to the happenings and had made wild speculations about the origin of these ‘spirits’! It must be remembered that these girls were the ones who had recovered. The most affected ones had stopped coming to school. So, I suggested to them to consult our psychiatrist who had promised to provide help free of cost.

After this we proceeded to Chikamaglur where we stayed overnight. The next morning we went to the high school at Giriyapura, which is about 60 kms from Chikamaglur. This school is situated about 3kms from the Giriyapura village in a beautiful campus with large grounds and had excellent facilities. There were about 400 students and their parents who were celebrating their school day with a parent-teacher meet that morning. They held sports, entertainment and educational programs. Our interaction was of the last category. The president of the school management committee was a stickler for time and had a stopwatch on the table in front of him. I was given exactly two hours for the interactions and we had a very good one with a number of demonstrations followed by a Q&A session. I fielded a good number of the questions from the students and teachers, though the parents’ response was lukewarm. We were very happy with the arrangements made but had to return immediately to Chikmaglur, which is about an hour’s ride. We had a program there in the evening at 6 pm.

Though we reached well before time, the program started only at around 7pm. That was fine by us as we preferred to wait for nightfall. The program was an open-air one and we had planned to show video footage using a LCD projector. There were many functionaries of the education department as well as some local dignitaries on the dais. But, none of them took any time to speak as they felt that the audience was very keen to experience the program rather than spend time on lectures! The audience was comprised of members of the public, and the students and teachers. Some schools had informed their students to come to the program and bring their parents along. Though seating arrangements had been made for a thousand, they were all occupied, and at the peak time it was standing room only. We demonstrated to them many so-called miracles, showed them video footage and also invited them on-stage to experience for themselves how even an ordinary person could perform many of these apparently supernatural feats! This demonstration was followed by a Q&A session, but with a rider that it would not be debating platform. There were a good number of questions from all the sections. There were also some people who already had a rationalist mind-set but had not met any like-minded people thus far. They were glad to join us and promised to keep in touch.

The next day we had a meeting at the Chikmaglur Science Center with the activists who were interested in the movement. We had about 30 of them from all over the district. There were introductory remarks followed by remarks from Swami and Natekar who had come as the representatives from the State federation.  We spoke about the need for a state-level organisation and the pros and cons of the same. There were a number of queries from the members, and all finally came to the conclusion that there was a pressing need for one. So, it was decided to form a state-level organization with an ad-hoc committee appointed for this purpose. The office bearers were also nominated and they all agreed to function until a proper body could be formed and elections take place. It was generally felt that there is a great need for such an organisation, especially since the district has become a communally sensitive spot due the irrational activities of some vested interests that were disrupting the peace. It was also decided to have the training program on scientific temper at the district in the next few months as there was a demand for the same from activists who wanted to approach the public with activities designed to improve their levels of critical thinking.

After the meeting was over we returned to Mangaluru, and on the way back enjoyed some of the wonderful Western Ghats scenery that we could not appreciate on our way forth.

Professor Narendra Nayak is the president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. He regularly tours the country giving presentations, holding demonstrations to promote scientific temper and debunking frauds and godmen.

Related posts:

1. Rationalism tour of India – Part 6
2. Narendra Nayak’s Rationalism Tour: Part 3
3. Narendra Nayak’s Rationalism Tour of India- Part 2.
4. Announcement Of Schedule For Prof. Narendra Nayak’s Rationalism Tour: Feb 13th to March 7th
5. Premanand in Mangalore
6. A Nastik in Devbhoomi- Part V of Narendra Nayak’s Rationalism Tour

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.

The Internet, TV and newspapers are abuzz with discussion on Raashee (Zodiac). One blogger wondered, “I was married to my wife because my Raashee and her Raashee matched. Now we find that our Raashees have changed and they do not match. So what should I do?” Another reader wondered, “My Raashee has changed. Does that mean that I am not anymore who I used to be?”.

This striking turn of events was instigated by an innocuous report published in a daily, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Parke Kunkle, who has been nicknamed the “Man Who Changed the Zodiac”, was quoted by the news media which was reporting that zodiac signs used until now are no longer valid. He had stated that the dates of sun-signs have changed by about a month since ancient times, and that a 13^th zodiac, Ophiuchus, needs to be added to account for the motion of the Sun in celestial sphere. The sun-signs that astrologers have been using appear to be misplaced. Until now one who had thought of herself as being a Pisces, finds herself morphed into an Aquarius.

Parke Kunkle, an astronomy populariser, was giving a talk taking broadside at astrology. He was explaining that the naturally occurring wobble in the direction of the earth’s axis – technically known as a “precession” – had altered the alignment of stars overhead from their traditional star signs, which date back several millennia.  Thus the actual place of  the Sun in the Raashee chakra as computed by astrology is widely off mark from the astronomy (and could be verified by observation). It is not like all of a sudden scientists have discovered this fact now, or that abruptly the Sun decided to jump and change its position amongst the Raashee on one fine day. In fact, this truth that the fundamental claims of astrologers are inaccurate has been common knowledge among all astronomers for a very long time.

What is Zodiac (Raashee)?

The Sun appears to rise in the East and set in the West. In like manner the Moon and other planets also rise in the East and set in the West. On any given night the Moon can be seen near a star, say Revathi nakshatra. The next day, if we observe carefully, as the Moon revolves around the Earth it will not be near Revathi anymore. In fact it will come back to its position near Revathi after about 27 days. In other words, the Moon will complete one circle in the night sky and come back to the same position in the sky (near the same original star) after about 27 days. Observing this wonderful fact, in ancient times, the thinkers created a concept called “Nakshatras” (stars). They identified 27 bright and noticeable stars and each of these days were named after these Nakshatras. On one day the Sun will be near a star. The next day it will not be as close to it anymore. It would make a one complete rotation and comeback to the same star after one year. In like manner each planet – of the five that were visible to naked eye – was also seen to traverse in relation to these stars. Not exactly taking the same path as the Moon, but about 8-9 degrees on either side.

Figure 1: Twenty seen Nakshatras near which the Moon appears to traverse in the night sky as it revolves around Earth.

In ancient times, the Babylonians observed these phenomena and named this strip of night sky the ‘Zodiac’. If we imagine the night sky as inside of a ball- celestial sphere – with Earth placed at its centre, then the Zodiac was a belt that cut the celestial sphere into two. All the then-known Planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – along with the Sun and the Moon appeared to travel in this belt. This circular band of night sky was divided into twelve parts and each part was named ‘Rashee’ (or zodiac sign). Using their infinite artistic ability, Babylonians also imagined stars in these each Raashee to be the figure of an animal. Thus the strip traditionally divided into the 12 constellations was called zodiac belt. The name comes from the fact that most of these constellations are named for animals–Leo the lion, Aries the ram, Scorpio the scorpion, Cancer the crab, Pisces the fish, Capricorn the goat and Taurus the bull (The term Zodiac comes from the Greek word Zodiakos which means “circle of animals.”).

Figure 2: A belt of star groups – constellations – against which the Sun and Moon appear to traverse. This is the Zodiac. As the Earth revolves, the Sun, which appears against Leo one month, appears against Virgo the next.

While Sun is up in the sky we cannot see any stars (except during a Total Solar Eclipse, when, for a fleeting moment, the stars would be visible during the day). However there are stars behind the Sun, invisible to us because of the brightness of the Sun’s illumination. Thus at any time the Sun is also somewhere on the celestial sphere, that is, the Sun appears to be somewhere on the zodiac belt. The zodiac sign in which the Sun appear to be at a given point of time becomes the sun-sign of that day. This zodiac also rises with the Sun and sets in the West. However, the parts of the zodiac caught in the bright glare of the Sun are not visible to us.

Figure 3: As Earth revolves, Sun would appear to shift from one place to another amongst the background stars- The Zodiac.

As the Earth goes around the Sun, the Zodiac signs behind the Sun also change. When seen from Earth the Sun appears to move from one zodiac to another, and in one year it makes one complete revolution. Every month it covers a different constellation of the zodiac, which is the real reason why those constellations are 12 in number. Of course, during that month the correct constellation is not easily visible, because the sky near the Sun is too bright for its stars to be seen.

Though the zodiac through which the Sun passes at any given point of time is not visible, it is not difficult to determine that zodiac sign. You can do it yourself. Observe carefully the Raashee that rises just before the Sun rises, and also the first Raashee to set after sunset. Obviously, the Sun is somewhere inbetween these two Raashee. Assume that Gemini is the Raashee that is the last Raashee to rise before sunrise, and Leo is the constellation that sets first after sunset. The Raashee that is right behind the Sun is Cancer, which is inbetween Gemini and Leo.  In this manner each month-long period of the year was given its “sign of the zodiac.”

Astrologers, both Indian and Western, who believe that the stars and planets mysteriously direct our lives, claim it makes a great difference “under what sign” a person was born. In Western astrology the position of the Sun is considered prime and in Indian Astrology the position of the Moon in the Zodiac is considered significant. Thus anyone born between Dec 22 to Jan 21 is assigned “Capricorn (Makara Raashee)” as the Sun sign in the Western astrology (as well as most of the Daily horoscope that are published in the newspapers). However in the Indian system the position of the Moon in the Raashee chakra is taken into consideration. The Moon revolves around the earth about once every 27 days, and hence the Moon Raashee changes almost every day. Hence, in the Indian system, the Zodiac of only those born between January 5^th at 10:10 hours and January 7^th at 20:32 hours would be considered Makara Rashee; while those who are born on January 4^th will be Danush and January 8^th will be Kumba, based on the position of the Moon in the Zodiacal belt.

Be aware, however, that the “sign” assigned to each month in the horoscopes is not the constellation where the Sun actually is that month. If you perform the simple test of watching the last Rashee to rise in the East before sunrise and the first Raashee to set after the sunset, and compare it to the standard horoscope, you will find a difference. The table 1 given below shows the sun-sigh/ Zodiac as per the Western astrologers and actual position of the Sun, taking the newly added 13^th Zodiac into account.

Table 1

An obvious question: Why is there such a significant difference?

In the Western system these zodiacal signs were determined by the Babylonians about 2000 years ago. At that time the sun-signs and the actual position of the stars matched each other. Slowly and steadily the Raashee and actual constellation / stars have been shifting relative to each other, creating a mismatch because of the gradual precession of the Earth.

What is precession? In addition to rotating on its axis (resulting in day and night) and orbiting the Sun (giving us our year), the Earth has another, more gradual, motion that few people know about. Our planet’s axis tips around in a circle, very much like a child’s top tends to tip around slowly as it spins. The Earth’s tipping motion – called precession – is quite slow. Our planet’s axis takes over 26,000 years to make a full circle. As a result of precession, the Earth’s axis will point in a slightly different direction as time goes on. For example today the Star Polaris (Dhruva tara) is near the north celestial pole. But in ACE 15000 the Earth’s axis will point towards the star Vega and it will be near the North Celestial Pole and not Dhruv Tara.

Figure 4: The tipping motion of the Earth axis is called precession

As the Earth’s axis tips, the point at which we see the Sun against the background of stars in a given month also changes. Thus over a long period of time, the Sun is no longer in the constellation (group of stars) it was supposed to be according to sun-signs. As the full circle of precession takes roughly 26,000 years, and the zodiac is divided into 12 signs, it follows that precession tips the Sun over by one sign every 2,000 years or so. Now it just so happens that the rules of modern astrology in the West were codified just about 2,000 years ago (by Ptolemy in his great summary work Tetrabiblos.) This means that the constellations the Sun finds itself in month after month have shifted over by one zodiac sign in the time from then till now. So there is such a mismatch between astrological (false) claims and the true astronomical position of the Sun, by about a month.

Let’s take an example; someone born on August 1^st is considered by astrologers to have the Sun sign Leo. And, indeed, two thousand years ago, the Sun would have been in the constellation of Leo on August 1^st. But in the 21^st century, the Sun is no longer in Leo on August 1^st because of precession. Instead it is in the constellation of Cancer! The astrological signs and the real constellations from which they are derived are now “out of synch.” As per the astrological cannon, the position of the Sun amongst the stars at the time of your birth, determining your sun-sign, is supposed to determine your characteristics. Leos are supposed to be Generous and warm-hearted; Creative and enthusiastic; Broad-minded and expansive; Faithful and loving, whereas Cancers are supposed to be Emotional and loving; Intuitive and imaginative; Shrewd and cautious; Protective and sympathetic.  Until now if you have considered yourself a Leo and now you have come to know that you are ‘actually’ a Cancer, what does it mean? Does it mean all the predictions about you until now were wrong? Or does it mean that today somehow you have all of a sudden switched from ‘Leo’ to ‘Cancer’?

You are what you are. You cannot wake up one day and change from one personality to another. It is like that the Sun has shifted its position all of a sudden a month ago. It has been gradually moving and the sun-signs have been out-of-sync for a very long time. Yet astrologers, who are essentially people with no scientific credence trying to be astronomers, have been misapplying information gained from observations written down many thousand years ago.

The Indian system of astrology

Ancient Indian astronomers such as Vishnucandra have observed the precessional motion of the earth’s axis, and have attempted its calculation. In the Indian astronomical tradition precession was called ayanāmsa and calendars taking this into account were called Nirayana calendars. Astronomers like Manjula CE 932 correctly argued that the ayana -chalanam (Precession of equinoxes in Indian terminology) is completely circular and yearly precession is about 56.82 arcsec. There was a school of scientific astronomers in India which was free from astrological orthodoxy. Manjula also stated that the precession should be carefully observed and corrected from time to time and argued for drik-tuliya (computation and observation matching).

But the astrologers did not accept these scientific findings nor understood it.  Astrologers in India rejected astronomy and still base their computations upon traditional texts and treatises, mostly following the Surya Siddhanta or treatises based on it. They use ayanāmsa according to Surya Siddhānta, in which ayanāmsa rises from 0° to +27° during 1800 years, then decreases to 0° and further to -27°, thereafter rising again, thus oscillating within a range of ±27° instead of cyclically moving in a circle as modern concept of ayanāmsa/ precession suggests. Thus according to Indian astrologers the ayanamsa will increase and reach 27°in CE 2299 and then the ayanamsa will reduce! This is indeed way off mark. Ayanamsa will continue to increase in reality and complete the whole 360° degrees.

Even when Indian astrologers base their calculations on ayanamsa (precession), it is not still accurate and does not match with the actual position of stellar objects. Indian astrologers do not base their computations on actual observations but only on one or two of ancient texts to which they owe their allegiance. For example in Indian astrology the Sun entered the Makara Raashee in 2011 at 18:38 on January 14^th. But the actual fact is that the Sun entered Makara Raashee only on January 20^th 2011! Therefore even the nirayana system of Indian astrology is in error in their calculation of the zodiac. Whether it is Western or Indian, astrology is bad astronomy.

Astrology is bad astronomy

The entire basis of astrology is the idea that the Sun, Moon and planets move through 12 constellations. This basic idea is in error. If we take just the Sun, we see that it actually moves through at least 13 constellations. If we look at the Moon and Planets then we need anywhere between 13 to 24 constellations to account for their movement in the celestial sphere.  Also we celebrate Uttarayan on January 14/15^th, but the actual equinox occurs on December 21/22^th. Similarly April 14^{th is} celebrated in many parts of the country as the day of the Sun entering Chitra, but actually this event occurs on March 21/22^th. In like manner there are a number of grave and fundamental errors in the traditional computations in Indian traditional astrology.

Undaunted, defenders of astrology invoke certain natural phenomena to show how the Sun and Moon influence events on Earth. Often they cite the example of tides. We all know that during Ammavasya (New Moon day), the waves in the sea are stronger and the sea-level increases. They claim that since the human body is largely water, the Moon could influence our constitution. At the first sight the argument appears to be plausible. But examine it critically. Suppose you have a bucket filled with water to its brim. Does the water in the bucket rise influenced by Moon and drip over on Ammavasya due to tidal attraction? No. Apparently the same Moon that has visible and dramatic effect on Oceans appears to have no effect on water in bucket, river or lake. This is because the increased tidal levels during high-tide on Ammavasya are made possible by the low-tide levels of the oceans on the other side of the earth. Any student with grasp of high school physics could explain this. Thus often the arguments invoked by the astrologers are made out without any deep understanding of the science behind the claims.

If the effects of astrology can be attributed to gravity, tidal forces, or magnetism (each is invoked by a different astrological school), even a beginning physics student can make the calculations necessary to see what really affects a newborn baby. These are worked out for many different cases in Roger Culver and Philip Ianna’s book Astrology: True or False (1988). For example, the obstetrician who delivers the child turns out to have about six times the gravitational pull of Mars and about two thousand billion times its tidal force. The doctor may have a lot less mass than the red planet, but he or she is a lot closer to the baby!

Some astrologers have become smarter and cautions. They are aware of their limitation in science; and hence make an argument that astrological influence is carried by mysterious forces; unknown even to science. Does this argument plausible?

It is hotter when you are near a hot object and it becomes lesser and lesser hot as you move away. In like manner a lamp that appears bright while near it appears to be dimmer and dimmer as you move away from it. Long-range forces in the universe get weaker as objects get farther apart.

In ancient times the astrologers thought that the planets go around Earth, and hence considered them to be at the same distance at all times. However, today we know that Planets go around Sun and hence all planets will be closer at some point of time and really very far away at some other point of time. For example the distance of Mars when it is furthest (other side of the Sun) is seven times that of the distance when it is nearest (when Mars, the Earth and the Sun are in a straight line). Thus, the influence of Mars should vary from day to day depending upon the distance. Thus even if the astrological force is mysterious and unknown to science, its effect should wane as the distance increase. However astrologers are oblivious of the distance of planets and consider only the position of planets in the zodiac. An astrologer would be worried so much about the place of Mars in the Raashee chakra, but not on its distance from Earth. The importance of Mars in your horoscope, it is believed by the astrologers, is identical whether the planet is on the same side of the Sun as the Earth or seven times farther away on the other side.

Of course one could argue that this mysterious astrological force does not depend on distance. In that case, why are only the visible planets of our solar system, one star, that is the Sun, and one satellite, that is our Moon, exert this mysterious force? What about the rest of the celestial objects in our solar system? We know that there are more than 150 Moons in the solar system, and there are two additional planets (Uranus and Neptune) in the solar system, and yet astrology has no place for these. In addition, through modern astronomy we know that there are more than millions of Suns (that is other stars) in our galaxy. Some of these stars are thousands of times bigger than Sun; million times more powerful. Yet only one star, that is our Sun, is taken into account in astrology.  We have now found more than 300 exo-planets – that is planets orbiting other stars. Why don’t these have any effect on us if distance is not a problem?  Astrology has no answers.

Related posts:

1. Astrologer Bhaskar Shetty Accepts Rationalist/Skeptic Narendra Nayak’s Astrology Challenge