This is a guest post by Bo Gardiner, the pen name of a Virginia-based environmental professional, naturalist (in both senses of the word), writer and humanist activist. She blogs at Under the Greenwood Tree.

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An associate editor for Huffington Post Lifestyle, Suzy Strutner, has bequeathed upon the world a truly extraordinary work of inanity in a piece called “Your Birthday Says A LOT About What Happens In Your Home.”

So there’d be no confusion, HuffPo wisely waited till the day after April Fools to post the piece on its “Positive Change” section. Let us ponder Strutner’s words as she shares her findings about Local Space Astrology in home floor plans:

Your birthday creates special, invisible “planet lines” around your house. To find them, you’ll get a local space chart based on the location of the sun, moon and planets at the time and place of your birth. If you lay this chart over the floor plan of your home, you’ll find out which “planet lines” run through each room.

Serious stuff. We’re talking charts and maps of astronomical objects here. That makes this science, so HuffPo spoke with credible scientists:

“Knowing which lines run through which rooms can tell you how to utilize your space,” [Astrology & Interior Design author Kita Marie] Williams told The Huffington Post. “If your moon line runs through your office, you might want to start having personal, emotional conversations there instead of in another room.” Ideally, you’d center your entire floor plan around the planets. But that’s almost always impossible, Williams noted. Plus, if many people live in your home, then their ideal room setup is going to be different than yours, since they have a different local space chart. Instead, learn how the planets make each room for each person below. … Williams suggested leaving the floor planning to the pros, as it usually takes a special software to make a local space map of your home…

The Huffington Post: offering readers not just the latest in science for the home, but in technology and electronics, too!

The planets give clues about how you behave in every room… And their auras are said to fix everyday household problems. Of course, some planet lines may not sync well with the rooms that they intersect. This might debunk household crises like a broken computer, according to astrology expert Gloria Roca. Roca once consulted a client whose broken computer sat near her home’s Neptune line. The machine likely broke down because Neptune represents slowness and blur, Roca says. Once her client added a photo of a serene mountain — associated with the earthy and wise planet Saturn — to the room, the computer started to work just fine.

Does Phil Plait know about the BLUR from NEPTUNE? Why did he not warn us of this in Death from the Skies?!

HuffPo knows its readers want none of those unpleasantly uncertain fudge phrases that fussier infotainment sites often use, like “some say” or “it’s not proven, but it may work for you.” Informative pieces like this sound so much better when stated with confident, caveat-free authority. I wonder if Strutner and HuffPo have thought for a teeny tiny moment about what the world would be like if people actually believed in the importance of local space mapping of planetary auras…

Teenager: Mom, there’s a Mars PLANET LINE going RIGHT THROUGH MY BEDROOM! What do you EXPECT from me? … Husband: You know I can’t cook, hon, not with that Jupiterian aura poisoning our kitchen. I’ll take my turn when Pluto comes back around. … IT Support: Got an update on Jane’s computer issues, boss. I covered our ass like you asked and didn’t tell her that her cubicle lies smack across our Neptune line. Don’t want that to come back and bite us. So I pretended to tinker with the insides while I attached a tranquil mountain sunset photo magnet to the back of the casing. I’ll give it a week, and if it’s not better, I’ll switch it out for a waterfall shot. … Parents to teacher: Give Jimmy a break. Didn’t he explain to you that we foolishly planned his nursery as a baby without a Local Space Map? Blame us! It’s a wonder he’s doing as well as he is. … Lawyer: Your honor, my client is socially disadvantaged. He’s adopted, and without knowing his birthday, he can’t possibly arrange an astrologically safe living space. … Joe: But you were the perfect couple! I can’t believe you’re getting a divorce! Bob: We tried, Joe, but we were up against the impossible. Our space charts just had no overlap whatsoever, or for little Sally. Every room was wrong for either her or me. It just sucked the life out of us. Sally ran away from home and we didn’t have the heart to make her come back to that hellhole.

I’m always struck by the irony of New Agers talking about “creating their reality” with positive thinking (a good thing) and the Law of Attraction (a stupid thing), yet forever inventing new things they want us to worry about that supposedly hurt us. Of course, only a cynic would suggest that they’re manufacturing a new “problem” so they can sell a book or collect a consulting fee to “fix” it.

But because I’m nothing if not fair, I’ll give HuffPo editors a nod for their impressive dedication to serious fact-checking, because look how professionally they handled this egregious technical error:

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post stated that in local space astrology, the birth chart is laid over a floor plan of your home. In fact, a separate local space chart is needed.

(Image via Shutterstock)



