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Jyotish on the Internet: Silicon Snake Oil or the New Reality?
by Rohiniranjan
October 29, 1969 was a fateful day!
Around 10:30 PM a child was born in
UCLA, Los Angeles. It was a feeble
birth, suffering a few gasps and creating
some anxious moments in its birthing
team. A month later, definite growth was noticed.
Over the next several years its potential was seen
first by military, then university and by mid to late
90\'s it had conquered the world! The name of the
child was ARPANET and when it came of age, it
began to call itself INTERNET. It was to be known
worldwide and loved by mankind to become a
household name. “Now we know the rest of the
story!”, as a popular radio serial from Chicago says!
Around the early 90\'s Internet began to
influence astrologers and astrology. But that was
not the first brush between the two giants that have
changed many lives: Astrology and Internet! As
early as mid-80s telecommunication had already
been established as a harbinger of the ‘shape of
things to come!’ Recently settled in North America
and beginning to get comfortable with the
computers of those days, Timex-Sinclair ZX-81 and
then the more serious phenomenon named as
Commodore-64, I was very interested in automating
and aiding my long-term interest in Jyotish and was
tinkering with programs and routines for calculating
jyotish charts for personal interest and also for
doing research with my collection of charts. At about
that time, I discovered telecommunications. Very
different from what we are currently used to, there
were only Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) available.
You dialed a phone number, the modem connected
to a BBS where you could post messages (just like
today’s jyotish lists and forums) and exchanged a
rudimentary form of E-mail and had access to
software utilities written by early IT-afficionados,
back then called computer Geeks (still are!). The
novelty of the possibilities was exciting but really
basic compared to where we are at now.
There were a couple of BBS that catered to those
interested in occult subjects and there were a couple with
small areas devoted to astrology; understandably western
astrology. My early attempts to break ice were well
received. People were welcoming and I was somewhat of
a curiosity to them (That Indian ‘Joyshi’ guy!). Beyond the
first thrill of this new way of communicating, there was
really not much that was interesting on BBSs. Then I
heard about Compuserve Information Service, GEnie
(General electrics’ network), Delphi and then came Qlink
(which eventually reemerged as America OnLine or AOL).
These were all very expensive to access from Canada
because of the Datapac (packet switching networks)
surcharge. It was still cheaper than calling these services
by long-distance, which was the only other option. Please
remember that back in 80s long distance charges were
really significant and none of the cut-throat competition as
we see today existed.
GEnie, Delphi and Q-Link had astrology forums and
in contrast to BBSs, had more sophisticated message
systems, email systems and the beginning of what we
know as Chat areas. Thousands of members had realtime,
simultaneous access (huge VAX mainframes were
utilized) and the air was full of electricity. These
were the forums where I really began to
interact with serious astrologers and
exchanged with them what I had learned
pretty much by myself, and aided
by Shri B.V. Raman’s books and The Astrology
Magazine over the prior decade or two. I was pretty
much the only serious jyotishi on some of those forums
back then.
Though I was a member on Compuserve, I
used it reluctantly (most expensive of these services).
When I moved at the very beginning of the 90\'s to a city
where there was a local node (no more DATAPAC!), the
cost factor became a lot more manageable and I began to
frequent Compuserve which had just opened a New Age
Forum (spawned from the Religion Forum) by
entrepreneur Neil Shapiro and Rilla Moulden. The forum
soon got so large that it had to be divided into two forums
(fora!).
On one of these was the Astrology Section. I
became a fixture on that Section! There were a whole
bunch of very friendly, very enthusiastic individuals who
were very much into astrology (of all kinds). I uploaded my
messages, readings, articles I wrote to the libraries,
conducted conferences to teach and introduce jyotish for
several years. The Compuserve New Age Forum is still
there, accessible through internet but a ghost town
compared to those days. It was essentially killed by
internet! While on Compuserve, I served as the librarian
and then as a co-leader for the Astrology Section and the
Vedic Astrology Section that was formed next.
The forum provided a venue for interactions, serious
discussions and plethora of research material. Most people
were extremely forthcoming about their lives and details
and that I saw was the biggest advantage of the interactive
forums. Most jyotishis, particularly the amateur jyotishis
read a lot of books and articles but do not have the test
bed to examine what they have read and learned.
Recently, good quality birth data by the thousands has
become available on commercial databases which contain
both celebrities and regular people. Databases such as
Taegers, IDEA (Rodden’s database now sold as
Astrodatabank, probably one of the best available) etc did
not exist, and still remain very expensive for many. The
collection of data, the opportunity to actually interact with
the nativities, hold online readings in real time and to verify
information was an incredible resource in my path as a
jyotishi. For that I shall always remain grateful to
Compuserve and then to Internet.
As Internet became firmly installed by mid nineties,
and Jyotish found a home therein, in fact many homes (!),
it was natural for people to move there. At first there were
jyotish newsgroups which were the precursors for what we
know now as Jyotish lists or jyotish webgroups. Message
threads were delivered to your email and you responded to
the group. It was not very sophisticated and did not really
hold a flame to the much more sophisticated message
thread system on services like
Compuserve. As web-programming
and the WWW (world wide web)
itself developed with the addition of
more graphic and capable webbrowsers
(Mozilla and all the way to
its son Netscape and Microsoft
Internet Explorer) , the internet
phenomenon went into hyperdrive!
Webspaces sprang all over the
domain, many of these were
commercial sites primarily for
advertisement, while a few like mine
primarily for providing information. I
eventually was invited to participate
in a web-experiment named Astro-
Expert.
This was an
ambitious site with astrocalculators,
articles, reading areas and technical
areas for asking questions etc. I
manned the ‘Please Explain’ area on
it. It must have been very popular
and I did put in a lot of time and
energy into it. So much that people
thought the Astro-Expert site was
mine. That it was not. Due to a
variety of reasons, the site-owner
had to focus elsewhere and Astro-
Expert ceased to exist. Before I
forget, I must give my thanks to Sri
Rajender Krishan of New York who
had created a site devoted to
writings by and for Indians. The site
was www.boloji.com and it is still
growing stronger and more popular.
It is a very esthetically pleasing site.
In the astro section I used to
contribute my writings and he was
the individual who introduced me to
the owner of Astro-Expert.
There are several Jyotish lists
that exist on the web now, more like
hundreds! Most of these allow
individuals to interact, to share the
libraries and are a popular venue for
seeking readings, generally free.
There are professional astrologers
on these and it is a good way for
many of them to establish their
credibility by showcasing their
astrological prowess in public and
then be approached by those
interested for paid readings. These
are also potentially effective venues
for technical discussions and
astrological quizzes etc. While many
individuals keep to the norms of
civilized interactions, once in a while,
flame-wars as they are called flare
up! Internet communication, unlike
face to face communication suffers
from some shortcomings. Messages
on internet are generally hurriedly
written and depending on ones
verbal facility, the messages can be
clear and easy to understand, to
complex and at times nearly garbled
(due to physical or other problems).
Some people use UPPER CASE
only which is generally taken as an
indicator of SOMEONE SHOUTING!
Some individuals use emoticons to
add an emotional dimension to their
messages. A colon and bracket can
thus indicate smiling :) or frowning :(
or winking ;)
The possibilities for
expression are endless. So are
those for confusion! Most forums use
English as the language of
interaction and not everyone is
familiar or proficient in the nuances
of the language which itself is
transforming all the time, creating
thus a potential for confusion and
heartburn. Lastly, internet provides a
certain degree of anonymity. Not
every likes to use their real name for
reasons of privacy and while it is
acceptable, it also allows some
immature and emotionally volatile
individuals to misuse the system and
abuse others. One must really be
patient and self-confident to avoid
such riff-raff, that does get past the
filter in many of the forums. The
moderated forums generally tend to
keep such crowds out and are used
as private areas for serious
discussion. Some of the web-lists
(groups) support chat areas and
some astrologers use the
messenger systems for giving
astrological readings, but as
conference areas for teaching and
technical discussions, these remain vastly untapped or at least under utilized.
Candidly put, as it stands now, there is hardly any quality control over the
information that
exists in Jyotish on the Internet. Much of it, nearly all of it actually, is unedited and
so one has to pick and choose. It is very easy to claim and brag and shamefully, many
individuals do exactly
that. This also applies to the astrology readings given and once in a while one hears of
scamstories. One
can only hope
that like any other
avenue, these
shady characters
represent a
minuscule
minority. One
cannot let down
one’s caution,
though.
Unfortunately,
word of mouth
alone is not good.
One needs to do
ones homework
well.
Internet
also provides
information about
legitimate
astrology
associations,
professional and
amateur and
information about
conferences and
workshops is
easy to find.
There are also
good sources of
books and
magazines that
can be purchased
over the internet,
with the usual
cautions and
caveats observed, obviously.
As long as one uses the resources on Internet, and there is a Universe of those
available, it can prove to be a very useful experience for the amateur and the student and
also the professional. It is like a library that never closes, a shopping mall that is always
open and a mouse click away. As long as you remain in areas that are well-lit and do not
stray away too far from what you came
to get!
This work by Rohiniranjan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Photo courtesy of hugovk at flickr.com
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