Traiters

Update: Here is a third influence of date of birth effecting people. In the article kids with birthdates later in the year are more likely to be on drugs for ADHD. And now that I’ve seen this, I bet back in the past these more immature kids were likely to be disciplined more.

Update the Second: A fourth example of date of  birth effecting people is the likelihood of being a CEO.

Perhaps you were aware of the recent kerfuffle in the news about astrological signs being about a month away from how astrologers know the zodiac is ordered. And that Ophiuchus was a constellation that over thousands of years had entered the zodiac. It wasn’t really news, it was just a new generation becoming aware of this discrepancy. The way I got told it is that astrologers had deemed 5000 years ago as being a ‘perfect’ time and those positions of the constellations in the zodiac became cemented as the ‘perfect zodiac’ which is supposed to be valid for any time in the future or past. So according to astrology nothing changes with this info.

The kerfuffle led to this site getting hundreds of search hits for my post ‘I Believe in Astrology‘. So despite that post poopooing much of astrology, I saw the power of the hold astrology has on the public. The largest amount of searches I got were “Ophiuchus traits”. I don’t know Ophiuchus’ traits, just that he is holding a snake represented by the constellation Serpens (Caput) and Serpens (Cauda) which I gather are the two ends of the snake. If you wish to find the traits of the serpent bearer, I suggest you look him up in Greek mythology. Astrology hasn’t taken Ophiuchus seriously so there aren’t official traits for people born under his sign.

So maybe there is interest in taking my position in ‘I Believe in Astrology’ further. I know more than I did at the time of that post. I wish to present my ideas to like minded individuals whom I will call traiters.

Traiter is my name for those people that believe the traits of signs in astrology actually exist. A traiter does not necessarily believe one thing else that astrology pushes.

Why the name traiter? It seems unnecessarily harsh because of its similarity to the word traitors. That is deliberate. You see in my case, I’m an amateur astronomer and some in the astronomy community think everything in astrology is hokum and that by pushing any part of it, I seem like a traitor to them. Similarly those who believe in the traits of the astrological signs but don’t swallow the rest of astrology may be considered to be traitors by the mainstream astrology community.

I have some backup, that the month of birth may actually lead to differences amongst different people. I’ve made mention of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers in my earlier blog post, which states that the majority of professional hockey players were born near the start of the year. The reason Gladwell gives is that hockey players starting at 4 or 5 years of age have a large advantage if they are 6 months older than their competitors. So these born early players make it into the ‘elite’ programs where they get more training than the other players. So the initial extra skill becomes amplified.

The other instance that I’m now aware date of birth makes a difference is for illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It has been found that the chance of getting these illnesses is greater if you were born in winter or early spring. It’s a small increase of only 5-8% but it has shown up in over 250 studies. There are various theories of why, including seasonal infectious agents. However, adding to the complication on traiter theories, it occurs in the winter and early spring of the southern hemisphere, 6 months removed from the north. So any traits may differ between hemispheres.

I’m thinking of doing a survey of astrological books and find which traits a consensus has developed among the astrological community. Hopefully I can find enough sources in Canada to keep the survey Canadian. If not I will move on to North American tomes and include the US.

I wish to keep the survey amongst the culturally similar. As should be obvious from my two reasons for a traiter viewpoint. The second reason gave the difference between northern and southern hemispheres. The first reason is based on the western Gregorian calendar. China and other countries use different calendars and might divide the population differently.

So maybe in concert with a traiter more on the astrology end of things,I would like to release a book with the traiter philosophy. You could easily just pick up those birth sign astrology books and not have to read mine. I’m hoping that the survey and consensus finding will be intriguing enough to hook some people.

If not, I intend to use half of the writer’s net profit to funnel into a study of birth date and common traits. At this point it would be better to involve a psychologist or social scientist who has experience with human experiments and might have ideas on how to eliminate the unreliable narrator in such a survey. As well, the psychologist/social scientist could give a heads up if any similar surveys had been tried.

Most interesting to me in such a study would be the Capricorn A’s and B’s. Or in other words, those born at the start of the calendar year and those at the end. I expect to see a difference because of our culture’s reliance on the calendar. If the seasonal interpretation that seems more common in mainstream astrology were more correct, they would be the same.

Things that also could be tested would be the earth, air and water rankings of the signs. Or the difference if any between the symbol’s generally accepted traits and the actual traits found by the survey. I think astrologers and non astrologers alike would like to see such a survey completed.

The findings could be published in another book. Or in other media. That I think would put some real evidence behind the traiter point of view. The southern hemisphere and the differently calendared could do their own surveys.

I’ve hardly done a complete survey of medicine, there might be more illness that depends on date of birth or season. Or there might be a whole host of other areas that the calendar year effects on date of birth. There might be other reasons for date of birth to effect the traits of people. If you know of any please leave a comment.

Maybe you like the philosophy of traiters but you don’t like the name. Perhaps we could use something close to astrology or astronomy. You know, to confuse even those who aren’t confused by the two close names. How about astrolomy?

Whatever, you can leave a comment if you need to be heard on this subject.