INVESTIGATOR READERS
Vic Lloyd
Vic Lloyd was born in Bath, England, in 1923 and has lived in South Australia for 46 years. In spite of his unmistakable accent, he now considers himself an Aussie. He served as a soldier in WWII (including the D-Day Landings) and spent all of his working life in the retail industry – graduating from shop assistant to the eventual position of General Manager in the process.
His main extra-curricular interest, astronomy, began about thirty years ago although he didn't join the Astronomical Society of SA until 1985: he lived too far away to make attendance of meetings practicable. Once a member, however, he began to write articles and essays for the Society's monthly journal, The Bulletin (some of which has appeared in INVESTIGATOR).
Afflicted by
failing
sight and other problems
Vic can no longer do any night-time observing, nor does he write with
his
former enthusiasm although he keeps up a lively exchange of letters
with
correspondents in England. His many other interests include history,
science
in general, music and reading.
EXCELLENT
EXPOSE OF
ASTROLOGICAL
"CODSWALLOP"
(Letter to the Editor — published in No. 74, 2000 September)
I very much enjoyed Harry Edwards' excellent expose on astrology (No 73). He writes with authority and sincerity and any detraction of that idiotic pursuit is dear to my heart. Well done, Harry, and thank you INVESTIGATOR.
By coincidence I recently came across a book published in 1940 by Louis de Wohl, evidently a celebrated (?) astrologer and author of that period.
The book, "Commonsense Astrology", was obviously written in 1939, the year in which WW2 began, and a chapter is devoted to Adolf Hitler (himself a noted astrology crank).
On page 253 is the following:
"How long is it (the war) going to last? The final peace, the absolute settlement, perfect harmony, is only visible in 1942. But that does not mean that the war in its present form will be going on until then. It means the end of the great cleaning of the world. Long before then that ferocious, raucous voice (Hitler's) will be silenced.”I wonder how he felt, meanwhile wiping the egg off his face, to be three years adrift in his predictions, both of the end of the war and Hitler's demise (1945)?
And, it will be noted, no mention of Pearl harbour, the Pacific war, the atom bomb, all the strife with Russia after the war, and the subsequent hostilities in Korea, the Middle East and Vietnam.
"Perfect harmony" indeed – what a load of codswallop! How gullible can people be?
Vic Lloyd
Tanunda
SA