Astrology and Myer-Briggs

stevenmu

Reading the What Star Sign Are You thread on AH, I was pretty surprised to see that the description for Scorpios matched me very closely. Not really close enough for someone to read it and then know how my mind works, but already knowing how my mind works I could see that almost everything mentioned was very close. There was also a thread there a while ago on Myer-Briggs personality profiles (test available here). This test showed me to be an INTJ, the description of which also matched me very closely.

What was most surprising about all this is that the descriptions for Scorpios and INTJs are very similar. Sure they use different terminologies, while the astrological description talks about the power of Pluto etc, the psychological talks about rational and logical parts of the mind etc, but ultimatly the end up describing what seem to me to be roughly the same qualities.

This got me thinking, I don't know much about it but I'd guess that 'real' astrology (I don't count the stuff in tabloids as 'real') has probably been built up through countless carefull observations over thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years and picking out the commonalities and patterns (perhaps any budding astrologers here can clarify). Again, I don't know for sure, but I think the Jung/Myer-Briggs profiles were built up from a large number of pyschologists/psychiatrists notes and specific profiles, and similarly picking out the commonalities and patterns.

So know I'm wondering is there actually something behind astrology. Have astrologers, through a vaguely scientific method, discovered some kind of phenomonon unkown to modern science ? I there any value in their findings, even though the conclusion that they're the result of the positioning of astrological bodies at the time of birth is unproven ? Or am I just seeing a pattern that isn't really there ?

As an excercise it might be interesting if people were to look at their astological profile here and take the online Myer-Briggs test here and see if there's much of a correlation between the two.

Talliesin

Jung was influenced by astrology, the concept of four elements and other msytical/occult views.

Kernel

Indian people of the Hindu faith place enormous faith is the stars and astrology, to the point that they all have detailed charts drawn up telling them what colours to wear, foods to eat, people to marry etc.

I don't know if the alignment of stellar bodies and constellations outside of our own galaxy can have a bearing on our characters, but I would suspect not. As is often the case, when reading a psychological or astrological profile, we tend to concentrate on the hits, or what we percieve ourselves as being, and ignoring the almost hits or total misses. Also, much of astrology is describing common character traits, that many people can share.

As an exercise, try reading the description of other star signs, and you'll see that much of the information given there can also apply to you.

solas

I'm not normally a fan of these kinds of tests, I'm an INFP according to Myer briggs.
heres a few other INFP's..
Homer
Virgil
Mary, mother of Jesus
St. John, the beloved disciple
St. Luke; physician, disciple, author
William Shakespeare, bard of Avon

lol.

(I never had you down for a scorpio steve)

stevenmu

Kernel wrote:

As is often the case, when reading a psychological or astrological profile, we tend to concentrate on the hits, or what we percieve ourselves as being, and ignoring the almost hits or total misses. Also, much of astrology is describing common character traits, that many people can share.

As an exercise, try reading the description of other star signs, and you'll see that much of the information given there can also apply to you.

I've been keeping that in mind, it is very easy to give more signifigance to the hits than the misses. I've glanced through some of the other signs and types, and while bits of them are hits, nothing seems anywhere near as close as the Scorpio and INTJ descriptions. Altough that could be down to the fact that I already know I'm not what they're describing if you know what I mean. Ideally, I suppose, I should have read through all the descriptions without knowing what they were and picked out what suited me best.

Solas wrote:

(I never had you down for a scorpio steve)

We're good at disguising ourselves

We also have to know everything, so of course I'm going to have to ask what you would have had me down as and why ?

Talliesin

solas wrote:

heres a few other INFP's..
Homer
Virgil
Mary, mother of Jesus
St. John, the beloved disciple
St. Luke; physician, disciple, author
William Shakespeare, bard of Avon

They all completed a Myers-Briggs test? Was it a DIY or administered by a qualified analyst?

solas

always thought of you as a bit of a softy, like a pieces or something.

Thought Katie might like this, might help clear up a few things.

Once a child asked me a question that wasn't easy to answer. "Why is it," he wanted to know, "that ladies wear trousers and men use pretty smelling cologne?" In typical Aries style, I dashed off an impulsive reply. "Well," I told him quickly, before he could think of any more em*barrassing riddles, "that's because there's a little bit of woman in every man, and there's a little bit of man in every woman. Now let's play checkers."

Looking back, I'm rather proud of my instant Mars wisdom. That statement is true to some degree of all the Sun signs, and it's super-true of Libra. You can find a trace of the opposite sex in the most virile, rugged Libran male, and Venus plays the same trick on the female scale balancer.

might go some way to explaining why people think I'm a bloke

stevenmu

solas wrote:

always thought of you as a bit of a softy, like a pieces or something.

Nope, not me, tbh reading about pisces all I can think of is (apologies in advance to any pisceans) 'weak'. I can be a bit of a softy but only when I decide it's the right way to be, never through 'weakness'.
(now, how typically scorpio were those two sentences ? )

solas

mmm..so thats the scorpio seduction technique..I thought you were just very charming.

stevenmu

Oh crap, now that I've given away the secret, my powers are useless....