ARE CERTAIN WOMEN PREDESTINED TO UNHAPPINESS
THROUGH THE INFLUENCE OF THE STARS?
Soon after my deliverance from evil, Seraphine cast my horoscope (I wonder why she never did this before?), and now much that was previously inexplicable in my life is made clear to me. She says that astrology is not a cheap form of trickery, but a recognized field of knowledge and investigation.
From the earliest times wise men have emphasized the influence of the stars upon human lives—for good or ill. I like to believe this. It gives one a broader and more charitable view of one's fellow creatures, of their sins and weaknesses, to realize the presence about us of these vast and mysterious forces.
My horoscope, with its queer phraseology, reads:
“Your Neptune is in evil aspect to your Venus, which makes you attract men almost irresistibly.”
This was the case, Seraphine says, with Georges Sand, George Eliot and various women in history who were the favorites of kings, although some of them had little beauty. They were dowered, however, with this terrific magnetism for the opposite sex.
I remember, even as a school girl, how the boys used to fight over me, while they scarcely noticed prettier and brighter girls. I never understood this, any more than they did, for I was rather indifferent to them. There was one girl in our set who attracted the boys as much as I did, but she was also drawn to them. When this girl was about eighteen her father began to receive anonymous notes telling of his daughter's escapades and warning him to guard her more carefully. Finally there came an open scandal when the girl ran away with a married man. At the time I thought myself a better and stronger character than she, since I resisted temptation, but my horoscope shows that I had “in beneficent aspect” certain planets that were “evilly aspected” for my friend, and this made her temptations greater than mine.
Seraphine says that the horoscope, wisely used, is like an automobile light in the darkness—it reveals dangers in the road that may be avoided. “The stars incline, but do not compel,” she always tells her clients and assures them that, by power of the will, we can overcome any influence of the stars, strengthening the good and weakening the evil aspects. That is a blessed thought.
When I was a trained nurse I received many confidences from women and some confessions of an intimate nature. At one time I took care of a married woman in Washington, a neurasthenic case, and this woman told me that she had several times tried to kill herself because of a curse that seemed to be hanging over her. Twice, following an irresistible impulse, she had left her husband with another man for whom she had no particular affection. It was a kind of recurrent madness which she did not understand except that she was positive that it had something to do with the phases of the moon. During about ten days of the month when the moon was “dark,” she was perfectly normal, but when a new moon appeared she was conscious of a vague uneasiness that increased and finally became acute when the moon was full, this being her time of peril.
Venus in conjunction with Mars, Seraphine says, brings love at first sight, but in evil aspect to Mars it makes one liable to sex-excesses.