Snakes or snake oil? Signs are in the stars

By all means celebrate the Lunar New Year, but take horoscope predictions with a grain of salt.

Snakes, or snake oil? Signs are in the stars. Picture: Getty Images

What do the following have in common: Taylor Swift, John F. Kennedy, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, Anne Frank and the cricketing Waugh twins, Steve and Mark?

They are all “snakes”.

The Year of the Snake, one of the dozen years named for Chinese Zodiac animals, started on Wednesday, with New Year festivities continuing for 15 days, culminating in the Lantern Festival.

Such Zodiac-inspired events attract ever-growing attention from established Australian institutions.

The Royal Australian Mint says: “We honour the wise, calm and creative people born under this (snake) sign with this” specially minted, $5 “beautiful, fine, silver proof domed coin”.

Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria offers rather charming commemorative Chinese Zodiac birth certificates – from $90.70 – noting “those born in the Year of the Snake are said to be enigmatic, wise and sympathetic”. Like China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping, who was also born in a snake year, 1953.

The National Gallery of Victoria does not appear to have celebrated Christmas except by closing on December 25. But it is urging Melburnians to “welcome the new (snake) year with two days of food, music and fun” at the gallery.

It’s one matter to be respectful towards, and share the fun of, the Lunar New Year, which is culturally central for most Asian people, although it is depressing that core Christian and other religious festivals should be ignored.

We in our own family enjoy decorating our home for Chinese New Year, when we arrange to share meals with special friends.

But it’s another matter to take seriously or even venerate the arcane horoscope readings and forecasts that swirl around the festival.

Taylor Swift is a famous 'Snake' according to the Chinese Zodiac. Picture: Gareth Cattermole

Bob Dylan, performing in 1987 in Paris, is another famous ‘Snake’. Picture: Bertrand Guay/AFP

If you are tempted to take horoscopes – based on the Chinese or any other zodiac construct – as meaningful, there’s a simple message.

Don’t.

I know, because I once wrote the daily horoscopes for the afternoon newspaper, in England where I grew up and was then working, for two months.

I did so without plotting the movements of celestial bodies, sourcing predictive energy from glowing crystals, or entering any trance states. Indeed, without taking the whole star signs business seriously at all, highly profitable though it is.

The results appeared well received by the newspaper’s half million readers.

The reason for my becoming Astral Astrid was very mundane, not at all ethereal or mystical. There was a postal strike, and my newspaper could not receive the syndicated horoscope to which we subscribed.

I was told by my section head, the features editor, to “run a house ad instead”, to fill up the space. I replied that the horoscope was a popular daily feature, and its style was so formulaic that I could easily copy it myself.

He let me get on with it. We all thought the strike would be over in a day or two. But it went on for almost two months.

Steve Waugh (pictured) and twin Mark are also ‘Snakes’. Picture: Monique Harmer

I soon fell into a jolly, daily pattern of feigning to my colleagues in the features section – sadly, their amusement wore off quickly enough – that I became guided by unseen otherworldly forces, my eyes bulging and my arms outstretched, as I bashed out Astral Astrid’s astute forecasts on an ancient typewriter.

I especially enjoyed making up the “Today’s Birthday” predictions, targeting them towards people I knew with anniversaries that day. A rather pompous colleague with a bullying style received an appropriate forecast: “Avoid social occasions. Even best friends may betray you.”

I was travelling home on a packed rush-hour train after the first month of my inhabiting the Astral Astrid columns, when one of two young women standing alongside me opened up her copy of the newspaper to that very section, saying. “I do like the horoscope in the Gazette.”

Her friend responded: “I don’t know how they do it. Every day they get it just right for me. Listen to this … (reading out that day’s Scorpio prediction) … It’s like they really know me.”

So enjoy the new year festivities, even consider having fun with snakes, but forget the forecasts.