Astrology column might be kinder if Pluto were in the house

Horoscopes for today, August 22.

Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) If you are an astrologer attending the "Astrology's Value to Society and the Individual" international conference in Oak Brook, you will be disappointed by the cliché horoscope gimmick used by a local newspaper columnist who questions the value of astrology, and then compounds his ignorance by warning that your unlucky numbers for the day are 12, 13, 21, 31, 33 and 34, so don't buy a lottery ticket with that combination.

All other Zodiac signs (Dec. 22-Nov. 22) - Today could be a day when you should avoid confrontations with squirrels, smile at women with umbrellas and realize the actions of every human being on Earth have nothing to do with the position of celestial bodies. Perhaps you can take up a new hobby by trying the Sudoku puzzle or learning what to do if South bids 1 spade, West passes and North bids 2 hearts.

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The dozen astrologers kind enough to share time with me at this weekend's convention in Oak Brook are warned that I'm a skeptic with a proclivity to mock. But, in the interest of getting some ink for their views, they tolerate me up to a point.

"You're not going to do any Uranus jokes, are you?" laughs Raymond Merriman, a financial astrologer who lectures on the art of using planetary cycles to predict markets.

Wow. His prediction prowess on the crude Uranus joke already orbiting around my brain forces an astronomical struggle in my head to find a suitably sophomoric replacement quip involving Pluto entering Virgo.

We do share one common view when it comes to astrology, however. None of us thinks those $15 fortune tellers at fairs or the daily zodiac horoscopes should be taken seriously.

"You can't divide the whole world into 12 groups," sighs astrologer Peggy Lance Little, a former president of the International Society for Astrological Research (www.isarastrology.com), a group of 1,641 astrologers from 52 countries that recently began using lengthy and complicated tests to certify professional astrologers.

"This is the image bestowed upon us all our lifetime. That we are entertainers and fortune tellers," Merriman says, noting many astrologers are to blame for fostering that stereotype. "They fall into that trap. We cringe. They become the face of astrology. That's negative for us."

The convention, which runs through Monday and has a free trade show open to the public today and Sunday at the Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort, boasts more than 400 members, most of whom seem well-educated, successful, sharp and grudgingly aware that I'm going to smirk every time they attribute anything to Saturn being in Virgo. They make it clear that they don't think the stars control human actions, but are a tool to help people make decisions.

"Astrology is a choice-giver, not a choice-maker," Merriman says. "The outcome is up to you."

Hometown astrologer Grace K. Morris has made a career as a stock adviser from her office in Oak Brook. In her lecture, which she has given around the globe, Morris says she picks winning stocks by looking at fundamentals such as a company's relative strength, earnings per share, ratings, debt, sales, growth rates and other business factors; performing a technical analysis of trends and market cycles; and then using her Astro Economics to graph an astrological chart based on the planets positions at the exact time and day the company was incorporated or first traded.

"When Saturn leaves Virgo and enters Libra, energy and pharmaceuticals go up," she tells a crowd of more than 50 astrologers at her seminar on "picking the winning stocks."

Many financial astrologers don't emphasize their use of planetary charts, knowing that might turn off skeptics. Clients don't care about the methods used as long as "it works and you are successful," Morris says.

Astrology is all about timing and cycles, they say. I counter by suggesting the same things happening every time Mercury is in retrograde could be a coincidence, just like the Chicago Cubs losing whenever I stay up late to watch.

"Ah, the Cubs," Merriman says, seizing on his opportunity to mock. "That's a big cycle there."