Al Capone was a Capricorn
For some time now, animated and often hostile debate has raged over a proposed connection between astrology and medicine, or what is called astro-medicine. Even Al Capone weighed in on the subject, and there were those, critics and curiosity seekers alike, who linked his fateful demise in prison from neurosyphilis to a not-so-casual alignment of his stars in Capricorn. Going back still further, it has come to light that the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, who were far from ignorant and who gave the world horticultural marvels, a magnificent library, monuments in stone that still stand and awe today, recorded history in the form of hieroglyphics, and willow bark, or aspirin, for rheumatism and pain, were students of medicinal astrology and a perceived influence of stars and planets on health. Their “captive audience” of Jews also kept a knowledge of astrology among their confidential doctrines. It didn’t end there, either. The Middle Ages was a particularly florid period for “star power,” with faculties of astrology springing up in such diverse Spanish cities as Cordoba and Toledo, and with kings, Popes, aristocrats like Catherine de’ Medici, and even a famous doctor-astrologer and bubonic plague authority or two such as Michel Nostredame, better known today as Nostradamus, plying their wares in the heavenly-body arena of the early and middle 1500s. It was thought that a star disharmony between physician and patient would lead inevitably to incomplete recovery from physical malady or no recovery at all. Physician promulgators of astral alignment familiarized themselves with the horoscopes of their patients, and, when that was not the case, patients took it upon themselves to investigate those of their healers. Furthermore, a common conception, or misconception, whichever you prefer, arose that the way the planets were arranged at the moment of a child’s birth dictated a later predisposition to disease.
So, that is all well and dandy, but where does the field of astro-medicine stand today, if it can be considered a field at all? Before that question is answered, some startling revelations bear denouement to incredulous minds. One of them is the fact that two-thirds of the world’s population seek health care from sources other than conventional biomedicine, otherwise known as allopathy. Closer to home, 42% of American households have tried complementary and alternative medicine in recent years, and the staid and somber National Institutes of Health (NIH) has supported no less than 50 investigations into the usefulness of various alternative therapies, of which astro-medicine is no stranger. Demand for attractive, affordable, alternative medicine approaches to chronic disease has grown exponentially, especially on the preventive and public health care stage. In mysterious India, where truths are often hidden and minds open, allopathy rides shotgun to yoga, massage, prayers, spiritual healing, tantra/mantra, gem therapy, hypnosis, acupuncture, magnet therapy, and that old acquaintance, astro-medicine. Can we dismiss the swelling legions of astro-medical warriors and a hungering public so lightly?
Perhaps there is more to the story than mere superstitious invention of a medical system that renders various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs subservient to the influence of the sun, moon, and planets. Perhaps the celestial-corporeal association is real, and the instrumentation and investigative methods currently available are too primitive to prove validity beyond allopathic doubt. Can so many people be wrong? Are the purveyors of allopathy so presumptuous as to think that their medical dominion and carte blanche of the last 400 years trumps the collective wisdom of the prior 60 centuries?
Medical astrologers study the anatomical-astrological birth charts of their clients or patients, in order to give advice about the areas of the body most likely to experience trouble. Farfetched and outlandish, you say? Perhaps, but condemning astro-medicine does not mitigate the fact that scores of patients with chronic diseases such as cancer, AIDS, arthritis, asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy, to name a few, have derived solace, comfort, and a measure of symptom control, if not out-and-out cure, from other alternative medical methods. Those remarkable gains, with survival of up to five years in some cancer patients, warrant a closer look at the “attractive nuisance” posed by complementary therapies so easily discarded by undiscerning allopathic eyes. As Shakespeare put it, in Julius Caesar, “The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” He might have said, instead, to paraphrase, “Open minds breed sound bodies.”
In astrology, there is a dictum that states, “Stars assume, but do not force,” meaning that the influence of the stars and planets on the health of a person can always be weakened by self-discipline, a healthy diet, and benevolent thoughts. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of Al Capone. The stars reveal that as a Capricorn his knees, joints, and skeletal system should have done him in. As it was, another “bone” brought about his demise, for he lived, loved, and died by the sword.
ã 2009, Albert M. Balesh, M.D. All rights reserved.
posted by Dr. Al at
11/29/2009 10:24:00 AM
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