Episode 12 // The Fate and Future of Astrology: Artificial Intelligence or Ancestral Intelligence?

On this episode, we interview Elsa from ElsaElsa.com, founder of the internet's "first Astrology Blog ever!"

Elsa truly exemplifies the role of the "outsider astrologer", which is high praise here on ROA. She has a free-spirit, free-mind and a very warm-heart. Despite the fact that she's one of the OG creators of the online astrology culture we all take for granted now, Elsa avoids petty elitism and conformity.

In this episode, Elsa reflects on how much the landscape has changed in the last two decades, not only for astrology but for independent websites and content creators.

She describes the struggles that are faced today in stark contrast to how things began....

Once Upon a Time, the internet was like the Wild West. Back in the late 90's, the internet was full of wide open spaces where freedom of speech could be exercised on uncensored forums. In search of good conversation with like-minded people, Elsa began engaging in some of these forums. She discovered that most people knew very little about astrology and found herself working overtime to fill in the gaps for aspiring students. Whether she was correcting misinformation or getting embroiled in hot debates with adversarial skeptics, Elsa discovered her passion for stimulating dialogues. 

It was from the organic culture in these forums that ElsaElsa.com emerged. And to this day, her site still features a forum for astrological discussion. Twenty years ago, free and anonymous discussion was standard practice. But nowadays, this has become a rare luxury. 

In 2024, the invasion of privacy and global surveillance has become normalized and legitimized. And now in the age of AI algorithms and social media, Elsa shares how challenging it has become to run her independent website.
  
Astrology has exploded in popularity on social media, but has also become "dumbed down" and redundant. In this conversation we explore many of the ethical and cultural issues of this time, including the fact that Big Tech is now using astrological data for nefarious purposes.

What will be the fate of astrology in the decades ahead? Will it be reduced to "data" and become a false binary that is used to oppress and discriminate? If so, how will "true" astrology find sanctuary and where will it be able to thrive? 

We discuss all these things and much more. Enjoy! 

You can find out more about Elsa and follow her astrology updates at her legendary website: https://elsaelsa.com/

Follow Frederick Woodruff on Substack: https://woodruff.substack.com/
Follow Rachel & Andrei by subscribing to Aeolian Heart Astrology: https://aeolianheart.com/subscribe-newsletter-free-horoscope/


- 00:27 Introduction 

- 01:25 Once Upon a Time, the Internet was the Wild West: How Elsa Accidentally Founded the First Astrology Blog Ever!

- 03:33 Elsa's Unique Storytelling Style: Circle-K and Beyond

- 08:38 How Elsa's Grandfather Inspired Her Love for Astrology and Freedom of Thought

- 10:37 The Evolution of Online Astrology from Forums to Blogs

- 28:11 Why Big Tech Wants Your Astrology Data

- 34:33 Remembering AOL + How Rachel Discovered the FBI was Spying on Her

- 39:39 AI Dominance in Search Results

- 40:30 Video and the Post-Literate Age

- 42:00 Tech Dominance and the Future

- 46:55 Engagement vs. Entertainment

- 53:45 Andrei Compares AI Delusions to GHB

- 54:54 Elsa Critiques Late Stage Capitalism and Tech Fetishes

- 55:54 Frederick Discusses Scarlett Johansson and AI Ethics

- 58:41 Historical Perspective on Pluto's Influence

- 01:05:58 Battling the Algorithm: Elsa's Website in 2024

- 01:12:48 Astrology's Return to Underground Subcultures

- 01:19:23 Elsa Describes He

Transcript

0:27

Welcome back to the Rage of Aquarius podcast. The one and only outsider astrology podcast in the known universe. Am your host, Andre Burke. I am sitting here with my lovely co hosts, Rachel Caperso of Aeolian Heart Astrology and Frederick Woodruff of Woodruff Astrology. And our guest today is Internet legend, Elsa of ElsaElsa. com, where she has been blogging since 2001 on all topics related to astrology. It's potentially the first online astrology resource of note in the internet era. Elsa, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Elsa: 1:14

Thanks for the invitation. Hi everyone. I'm really happy to be here.

Frederick: 1:19

We are, we're so happy to have you. It's finally a dream come true.

Elsa: 1:24

It's a dream come true I can't believe that I'm talking to you because I ran across your book so many years ago, I was reading your book.

Frederick: 1:32

Oh my God, the Telephone Psychic book?

Elsa: 1:35

Yes, that was great. I actually, I got the book at the library, and it was so fetching, I started reading it, and I was like, As I was driving and I sat there and read like a good third of it in the car in the parking lot laughing out loud. That was a great book.

Rachel: 1:50

Oh my god, Elsa. I had the exact same experience. I mean, not in my car, but I Frederick sent me the PDF of that book in 2020. And I don't normally actually laugh out loud when I'm reading, but I was sitting there by myself laughing out loud It was such a great book, Frederick. Thank you so much for sending that.

Frederick: 2:11

Oh, sure. But Elsa, you wrote a book as well, because I saw it when we did the interview a couple years back about women in astrology, and then I came across a book you'd written, I think it's still up on Amazon. Do you want to say anything about that?

Elsa: 2:29

Yeah, it was kind of written. I didn't plan to write a book. I didn't plan to be a blogger either. All of this sort of unfolded organically. I was actually posting on a forum for business and I started a thread about astrology related thread. It was, I read an article. It was on topic for the forum. About increased chattiness. People talk more when Mercury's retrograde, and this is from British Telephone, and I thought that was interesting, and I put it on a forum, It was eBay sellers, actually. And I got flamed and I started talking back to the person who flamed me, So I started talking back to him and a big crowd gathered and my boyfriend at the time printed out that thread that was like 2000 pages long. I wrote about astrology. I didn't even know I knew anything to write and it started me writing.

Frederick: 3:23

amazing.

Elsa: 3:23

I know. Well, yeah, the whole thing's weird. But in the process of talking, I was telling using examples from my life and have had an interesting life. So the, there was a demand and I kept telling like a little bit of astrology and the stories, but they're all about my life. So the book is called heaven. I mean, Circle K. And it's a collection of stories that were written literally in email. Like I used to compose an email. I've never considered myself a writer at all. And it just happened. I started blogging because I fell for him for a spam mail. If you can believe that. I was on a, on this bulletin board, just writing thousands of pages to a non astrology audience. And that was like 25 years ago. some of those people read my blog today. They've never missed anything I've ever written in 25 years. Isn't that weird?

Frederick: 4:13

That is and we'll see what was the title of the book.

Elsa: 4:16

Heaven. I mean, Circle K. It's not really an astrology book, but it's funny. This is outsider. I'm like an outsider storyteller, I am good at it. And that's how people got interested, how people got interested in me was by storytelling. That included astrology, it's like he's a Leo, so I'm wearing this.

Frederick: 4:40

And I just, again, if also for the listeners, the book is called heaven and circle K

Andrei: 4:49

heaven.

Elsa: 4:49

I mean, circle K at the time. It's about a story where I can't discern the difference between having and circle K, heaven is wherever you really want to go. so I wanted to go to circle K when I was a kid. And so it's just the beginning.

Andrei: 5:04

me. I'm We have a no weirdo policy here at the outsider astrology podcast. We can't have you mucking up our good reputation over here.

Elsa: 5:13

What's

Frederick: 5:18

fascinating about that is I can really see that same vibe. Or ethos in Elsa, your site, because, whenever I go in there and check things out, there's that same very conversational, colloquial, tell it like it is boom kind of communication with your blog posts and in the forum with your readers. You do have this, which is what I've always loved about you. it's a very no bullshit, simple, to the point way of conversating with people. I love it. I really, and I think that's why you're People are there.

Elsa: 6:01

I really appreciate that. I mean, it's your natural way. I'm just a Candid person. I'm very honest and i've been studying this for just so long and things are I think they I say things like they're real because they are real and i'm sure of it,

Frederick: 6:16

know, what would you say? Like in mercury Let's pick that because we're talking about communication In your own natal chart, what do you see some, I mean, are there some wild Mars aspects to Mercury or

Elsa: 6:30

Yes, exactly. I have Mars conjunct Mercury in the ninth house and I'm no more. And I, you see, I'm just, and I sound like a man and I've sounded out there. And it's very interesting is if you actually meet me, I just wrote about this. in the early Days online. I was not, I used to be on the mailing list, there was no blogs or anything. And I was on the mailing list and we were just about getting cameras, getting digital cameras and people decided to put their picture up. And I sent my picture and everyone just freaked. And they told me they assumed I looked like a Mack truck. And it was real, like it's educational because what they're meeting, like by email is going to be Mars Mercury. And then what I look like is not is, it's completely it's, it, so that's something that's anyway, that's the answer to the question. It's Mars, Mercury.

Frederick: 7:22

you a Libra?

Elsa: 7:25

I know I'm a Virgo. Oh, Virgo. Okay. My Mars Mercury's in Libra. I like to think and talk about relationships. I like to interact with people. I like to talk to people from all over the world. it's the ninth house. Grew up with my grandfather who introduced me to astrology. He was a triple Capricorn, but he had four Ps and Sag and he lived in the, see I live in the country now. he lived in the desert and he would invite people over from all religions and stuff, to chat. And, he is able to go. And get the number two ping pong player in China to come to his house and play with him, it's on his side because he had a Adobe, like it's made out of mud ping pong table and this guy just had to see it, he's interesting. The point is you just like open to everybody and I'm very interested. I'm like hyper interested in people, in other people

Frederick: 8:19

Sure, and that, you're right, a poem, because we've got Andre with tons of Capricorn, and then Rachel is a Virgo as well, so this is the roundtable for us here today,

Elsa: 8:34

Well, I really appreciate being able to talk to you guys

Rachel: 8:37

Elsa. I would be curious just to hear a little bit about, how your grandfather would've introduced you to astrology and maybe what kind of books did he have, or maybe magazines or whatever. What did he study? How did he Learn a strategy? Well,

Elsa: 8:51

He was very ahead of his time, He actually was educated, and he was a professor at the University of English, and also Library Sciences. But he blew everything off in his 30s. He went rogue. He started building adobe houses in Arizona. And he was a vegetarian, then a vegan in the 1950s. It was unheard of. And he used

Frederick: 9:14

to,

Elsa: 9:15

yeah, he used to jog and he was a health, but my mother, of course she has a thing about her father. He was a health nut is what it's called at the time. And he was eccentric to the point where we would go into the grocery store and he'd stand on his head and the produce department and try to get people to eat, you vegetables. And we just love this, so he was into flying saucers. He was used to go visit communes and all that kind of stuff. So he I was eight and my older sister was 10 and he got us just a couple of books. He knew zip door Dobbins. Oh, God,

Frederick: 9:48

Jim.

Elsa: 9:49

he knew her and he said what he told us is he thought that we were smart enough to learn it and he was not, but he thought that we were smart enough to learn it. So that was a challenge to Mars Mercury. My whole family has Mars Mercury. Not my grandfather, it's a challenge. He gave us a couple of books, but we lived in the middle of the desert and got to go to town once a week to the library. So we'd go to the library and we were allowed to check out. I think it was two books each. So we'd cram, we'd pull every astrology book down on the floor, these little girls and read them on the floor. And my sister, she had to do the calculating. I couldn't calculate a chart, but she could. Close. I mean, she had my ascendant wrong. We found out when computers came out, but, she was able to do that. And we take notes like they had an ephemeris in the library. We take notes, we've organized which books are we going to check out this week. You see what I mean? So we exhausted all of these books and we learned what we could when we were kids. And I think we dumped it, just whatever got into boys, at puberty. And then back to it. We both did in our late teens. And, then about the time I was reading your book, Frederick is when I, it's like my Santa return is when I committed to this I committed. Yeah.

Frederick: 11:11

Did your grandfather, he convinced you guys to study it and then were you mirroring things back to him or informing him about astrology more or?

Elsa: 11:25

He wanted us to inform him. He was very interested. I mean, he wanted us to be Zippadora Dobbins, I think, he enjoyed her and he thought that she had talent and he thought we could become confident and we both did. I mean,

Frederick: 11:42

how did he know Zipp Dobbins?

Elsa: 11:45

Are you kidding me?

Frederick: 11:46

Well, I guess luck attracts luck.

Elsa: 11:48

I went to sell his house and they said, how many bedrooms? And I said, none. And there was three bathrooms and no bedrooms in this house because he slept outside. On a piece of plywood with a little skinny mattress,

Frederick: 12:00

on his head.

Elsa: 12:02

Exactly. So whatever she was, he was as weird. I guarantee that.

Frederick: 12:06

Wow.

Rachel: 12:08

So I've never heard of Zipporah Dobbins. Can you just give us a little intro to this author and what she wrote so that we can do a little research on her?

Elsa: 12:18

I can't, cause I didn't look into this, but sounds like somebody else, yeah, Frederick can.

Frederick: 12:23

Well, yeah, her, claim to fame, was she developed this system. that it was the idea that you have this alphabet that all of astrology is based on, and that's the number 12. And that is, in essence, the first house, Aries and Mars all have the same frequency. So you could apply that to the entire Zodiac. So fourth house is cancer moon.

Andrei: 12:57

Okay. I've heard this theory and I was introduced to it actually by it, through a critical post of it on Facebook. this is how I was introduced to this idea.

Frederick: 13:08

Well, yeah, I think people like Debra Holding and stuff really objected to it because, she sees the houses as very distinct from, the signs, so Scorpio and the 8th house. aren't necessarily, the same type of essence or whatever. But anyway, that was Zip Dauben's big thing. And then she wrote a couple of books, I think one on the nodes and then this alphabet zodiac, and then maybe something on Saturn. I think those were the three, but she was pretty big at the time, like in the seventies and I think into the eighties Interesting lady. For sure.

Rachel: 13:48

Thank you guys. I have some research to do, for sure. So Elsa, That's such a beautiful story. Elsa,

Frederick: 13:54

tell me, tell us about, like, how did the brainstorm hit you once you were on the astrology train, but what was like, wow, I'm going to make a website now.

Elsa: 14:08

No, I well, sorry to interrupt. See Mars Mercury. I'm trying No, I came on here intending to not talk too much, Anyway I didn't I never planned to do this. I definitely never planned to do this. It's like other people. It just was meant to happen. I'll run through this quick. my sister and I started astrology in tandem. she was, she's a couple years older than me, I was nearing my Saturn return, and we were reading Michael Lewton's book his first book, I think it's been rewritten, I was told that, because it's another book, it was so funny and we love these books, and my sister is psychic, and she told me I admired Howard Sosportas, Yes. And look, of course, this green, I admired them and she told me I was gonna be like them. And I didn't believe that at all. And she told me I was gonna write a book and I didn't believe that either. I never wrote anything in my life. But she told me that, I guess, psychically right. Didn't see there was no way for that to happen. There was no computer. and then somebody gave me a computer and they said, so you can write and I was in therapy at the time, oddly, and I sat down and literally I wrote an astrology blog that there was no such thing as a blog. I remember exactly where the first thing I ever typed into computer was some kind of little story about all the zodiac signs are crossing through some kind of forest. And, how they've handled that, on the other side, like Virgo is gathering up all the data to help other people once they're through the forest. See? And Scorpio says, what forest? And, I was writing, I wrote, that was the first thing I ever wrote in my life, it's just bizarre, and it was for a therapist of all things then I was going to get online, and this is another thing, it's just shocking I had the Mountain Astrologer in my hand, I'd never been online in my life, I didn't even know how to do it, and I figured out to type in the URL of Alt Astrology, And I went on there and I typed something to somebody and it turned out to be, I'll tell you who it was. It was Dr. C and he flamed me and he told me basically get off my, use neck, whatever. And I actually answered him and we ended up writing and I wrote him and only him on the Internet constantly for 6 months. And I learned so much. He taught me the internet.

Frederick: 16:22

who, I'm sorry, was Dr. Who?

Elsa: 16:25

It's Dr. Z. he has the Zodiac. com. That's how long he's been around. Oh my God. He's a Scorpio and he is marvelous. He has a PhD in psychology and I came on there and I was having, I think whatever I wrote, it seemed stupid. my mind's a little, abstract, I guess. And I told him I was having an empty in transit, but we became friends, And he taught me like he's the one I sent him a picture. He's the one who scanned the picture. So if I could put it on, and teach me about that. And they had how, wow, back then he taught me to use the internet. I'm such a, just, this is Mars Murphy again. We were emailing and he used the internet way of answering where you write your writing in between someone else's writing. And I berated them for that. Why can't you write a normal letter? and he actually tamed me enough that I could function in the internet.

Frederick: 17:16

So I hope he, did he also teach like the nuts and bolts of HTML and building a site and how

Elsa: 17:24

No, I guess the kind of the story i'm telling here is how you just can't get away from astrology This is always going to happen so the next thing I did was go on this board. I got one of this forum and I wrote about that full moon I started reading charts for people in there. a crowd came and it gave me birth data. And I just had these big threads on this thing. And then it's like fate. I got this this is like zenga. com is where I first. Started blogging and I blo I started because someone named Bianca, this was a spam mail that Zenga when they first started sent out, said, come I'm having fun on Zenga. Start a blog. And I did. And then it just took off. I mean, it took off. And, the person who owns Zynga, Zynga was huge for a time. It got as high as the number seven and possibly the number six website on the internet in its day.

Frederick: 18:21

I remember that.

Elsa: 18:22

Well, I was one of the top people there and it was the owner of Zynga that helped me set up my blog, the owner of Zynga. And also he convinced me to write a book. And he said, these stories, they got to have, you got to have a book, you've got to do something. And he has edited a book for me. He took my writing because I was just writing. I call that to find your creative self. Saturn in my sixth house. I started writing. Editing my book and trying to clean up my writing because I had like this Sagittarius blathering going so I had to edit that was very difficult and with Saturn went into my seventh house above the horizon. That's when I put my real name instead of a screen name. I used to be called very modern astrology space junk and became more professional, so that's how I That's how, oh yeah, so he built the website. Yeah he built the guy who built Zanga and see they were tied to, I didn't know a lot about this because they were tied to Biz Stone, who started Twitter.

Frederick: 19:23

Wow, fascinating.

Elsa: 19:24

Yeah, they're pioneers. And then, for good or ill, because of knowing them, I say them because there's a twin brother, but from knowing them, I know a lot of the back end. Sure. So I love

Frederick: 19:39

what you say about and I was trying to explain this to somebody the other day when we got into this argument about science and skeptics and astrology, but like you were saying about, you can't get away from astrology, once it gets a foothold in your psyche or whatever. It's like you, you're really, taken down some kind of a wormhole or something. and the reason I'm bringing the point up is what I was trying to explain to this person was that the reason skeptics or the rationalists and the scientists, they don't connect to what's really going on with astrology is because astrology isn't allowing them in. It's sort of, you have to, astrology has to let you in. and then whatever, your path is and Odyssey with it, takes off. It reminds me of when I moved to Hawaii, as a Caucasian, and it was the first time in my life I was, a minority. Because, the Polynesians, the Japanese culture, the Chinese, Philippines, but it was very much like living in Hawaii. You would see Caucasians move there, and then if the island didn't take to them, it would spit them out, and then they would move back to the mainland. And astrology is the same way. It's once it gets into you, that's it. But if it doesn't open to you, forget about it.

Elsa: 21:17

That is really, that's a very interesting take.

Frederick: 21:20

What do you guys think

Rachel: 21:21

Oh my gosh. Well, I think that's a good way to look at it because. Regarding, the common dissent, criticism, and also insults that I've received over the years, it usually does seem to come from someone that has zero intention to find common ground, has no common ground with me. And so it really does feel like Exactly what you described, and I can't really communicate with somebody who will not try to have a dialogue. I mean, it's very interesting, because I feel like, despite the fact that I've had a lot of pushback, and I've Heard a lot of criticisms. I've never had a legitimate Dialogue or debate with somebody who's already made up their mind about astrology It's just it's never happened in it. I've tried many times to have a fair conversation and to me, it's not something that i'm trying to get someone to believe in and they always Assume that it's something like religious fervor, but I try to explain I can't get you to believe in poetry or music or art. I can't get you to believe in that. It's just, it's something you either love and understand and want to talk about or dig into or not. And so I do think that you have a point there.

Frederick: 22:45

I mean, to your point about poetry and art, you could also say it's like, you don't have to believe in a screwdriver to be able to use it to, and I kind of see astrology in that same vein, right?

Andrei: 23:02

It has a, yeah, it has a practical utilitarian application. And I think that's honestly beyond the skeptics that need to, that nobody needs to do anything, except for maybe take a chill pill, check themselves before they wreck themselves, and anything in that vein. But. What would open, I think what would open a skeptic's heart and mind would be the the screwdriver approach. the idea of seeing it as a practical tool it could, would definitely be helpful to loosen some of those tight screws in their own mind. But I think. Even better the practical tool approach, is something that, people that follow astrology that listen to astrology, or really anything in this, modern, new age magico religious sphere, should start seeing these techniques, these schools that they follow as actually having a practical function and kind of lose this romanticization of the mysteries or that they're following some grand tradition or that they're part of some global awakening. And to move beyond that delusional kind of self inflation. which is where I really do think when a skeptic looks at astrology, the skeptic wants to tell you that they're not superficial. They're not judging it by its appearance. They're not judging it by the people that they known and the impression that they got in the generalizations they've made. They're resorting to science, but I think that so much of the reputation of these things comes from the fact that the people doing it. it's great if you have such an imagination that you're playing with a screwdriver and then you could pretend it's a lightsaber. That's awesome. But you really do at the end, they have to understand it's a screwdriver and that it has a function and you got to pick it up and put it down when you're done using it. Which I think is where a lot goes wrong with, things like tarot and astrology and the, just the greater kind esoteric sphere.

Frederick: 24:56

I'm curious, Elsa, given this long of time that the blog and site and forum of yours has been up what would you say how have things mutated or changed with the public's perception and engagement with astrology over the last 25 years?

Elsa: 25:16

changes?

Frederick: 25:16

How would you define that?

Elsa: 25:21

Well, when I first started, nobody knew any astrology and it's this kind of segue off what you guys were just talking about. I think that's one of a calling for me is it was by stories. They became interested in the stories and they, I have this Saturn, Neptune kind of signature in my chart. And I think anyone who hangs around me just will learn astrology. So the people who read my site, they became proficient, they became, some of them became proficient, but all of them have learned a lot of astrology. So like the big difference of consulting people used to know absolutely nothing. And now they know quite a bit, but I think that it's, they get a lot of things wrong. I don't mean this to be like critical. I'm saying just mean by my average consultation now, where it used to be, Somebody didn't know anything. They know a lot, but they get it wrong. And you can, it's easy to like, you can fix the astrology, like just move it and have everything change and like, how to pull them ahead. You see what I mean? I think that the level of knowledge is, dramatically risen, but I, that's it. This is in my little spot. I think, on the Internet, there's a lot more astrology, but I think it's harder to. To access it because it's not searchable. And I don't know if you have found that yet, or, if what I mean,

Frederick: 26:37

Well, sure. Because the people that know how to do all the crazy optimization have, created a shit show. I mean, 20 years ago using say Google or Yahoo, you'd get much better results. than now because of the way it's all rigged. I think that's kind of what you're talking about.

Elsa: 27:00

That is what I'm talking about. So it, I think the heyday to learn astrology well has come and gone, to be honest. On the internet the way it is right now because what you're gonna get returned, it's very I don't know. They just return superficial results and it's it's like it's not outsiders. That's for sure, yeah,

Rachel: 27:21

that's really interesting to hear like that the oversaturation and I guess the kind of the more shallow Interpretations

Elsa: 27:32

To me, I think astrology is hurting people at this point in large numbers because I learned this when I was a kid and eight year olds, are going to be exposed to astrology. So what are they going to, they're going to tell like a Scorpio, they use the stereotypes or whatever. It's like programs, the kid that they have to behave that way. And a lot of signs, most of the signs, all the signs are denigrated by somebody somewhere. And I think, it's very simplistic. just imagine being an eight year old and hearing you're a boring Taurus and you're of no use. I mean, a Taurus, they have intact self esteem. They'll be okay. So that's a bad example. But you see, and I'm saying that it makes people conform. And it really is gonna, I think it's causing harm.

Rachel: 28:11

I have a really important story of how that's happening and almost like a deeper reason why, beyond the type of blogs that come up in search results, like whoever's getting the best SEO and stuff, that's part of the reason, but It just came to my attention recently, kind of in a series of synchronicities that the astrology app, the number one astrology app right now is something called CoStar. I don't know if either of you have heard of this, CoStar app. So I just kind of ignored it myself because that's just not my scene, I don't use astrology apps. And the essential premise of this thing is that it's an app where you enter in your natal chart information and it gives you daily updates on your transits and it apparently has a pretty exploitative, fear mongering tone. So there's been a lot of criticisms of it based upon that. And so I didn't take that much interest in it because I thought well, there was always newspaper horoscopes that took that tone whatever. It's just not interesting to me. But then I was talking to one of my friends who is A coder and a web designer and she had a short time in big tech. She was working at some big company and CoStar was trying to poach her. And so they called her in for an interview and they started asking her strange questions that made her uncomfortable. And they demanded her entire natal chart as a part of the intake process. And she refused to give it to them. And she discovered that this company is, they're collecting the data of natal charts in addition to your tracking and anything else that they can mine from you. these apps are like, just, they ask you for money, but they also, they're making tons of money on your data.

Frederick: 30:03

The data, yeah.

Rachel: 30:04

So They want your natal chart? And she's yeah, they want your natal chart. I'm like, why? And she's oh, well, they just want everything on you so that they can build a digital avatar of you and use it to exploit you for ads. Plus, there are other reasons why. So one of the things that has shifted In the big tech culture, despite the fact that they've been coming from this dogmatic materialist perspective for so long, it has become a trend in the hiring processes of these big tech companies to ask at least for your big three. And it is absolutely being used as a discriminatory process to decide who's worthy of being hired or not. there's no protection against discrimination regarding your astrology chart. There's no way to prove that somebody did that and there's no laws against that whatsoever. But they're absolutely doing that. And I found out that there's been a ton of academic studies on this very phenomenon happening right now in China. And it's regarding Western astrology as well. It's not Chinese astrology, but right now in China, there is a serious problem with the Western tropical astrology stereotypes as As promoted and magnified by these like mechanical apps, these very simplistic, old fashioned, just like silly horoscope ideas of who people are and what their value is, those stereotypes, Western astrology, are being used to discriminate against Chinese people for hiring processes, it's become a huge problem in like the dating world. Just interestingly enough, Elsa, the most hated and reviled astrology sign in China is Virgos. And so there's like a serious problem with Virgos, Chinese Virgos being discriminated against not getting hired or being like blacklisted on any kind of social media or dating websites, those kinds of things.

Frederick: 32:13

wait a minute, when you say the big tech culture is asking for the big three, do you mean

Rachel: 32:19

Sun Moon Ascendant and it's wow, we're like a cool millennial company. Just give us your big three. It's made to be like this really chummy cool thing, but they are using your natal chart information, whatever they can get. And if you have CoStar or you have one of these apps, it's very likely that they just have your full natal chart. And yeah, they're using that not only to add to the avatar, the digital avatar they're building of you, so that they can combine all the data they have on you and try to target you for certain ads There's that element to it, but I'm sure there's other reasons. But your natal chart information is being used Transcribed

Frederick: 32:57

It kind of makes sense because we're living at a point now with AI coming in, where Google say, and then social media in general, has basically slurped up every iota Of data and information they can on a person So it just makes sense. They'd start going to their horoscopes as In more late capitalism nightmares, they're trying to figure out where your mercury is or whatever. So what days they can sell you, shoes or something like that.

Rachel: 33:35

It's binary code reductionist deterministic thinking. I mean, it is the worst possible expression.

Frederick: 33:42

Wow.

Rachel: 33:42

Yeah. So you're right, Elsa and Frederick, like this thing that you're observing is partly due to the fact that Astrology is proliferating mostly through these types of platforms, apps and stuff, and the messages and the writing that's getting amplified is just that. Very simplistic, very reductionist, very stereotypical, and we'll say stereotypes can become very prejudiced and discriminatory ideas very easily. Those things are being amplified and magnified by These apps, and in the AI systems the writing that people will be producing is gonna be based on those stereotypes. And I've seen a ton, and this might be something that you guys are seeing as well, I didn't understand that this was happening until I started using ChatGPT. Which is the free language AI bot that everyone can use and it's got a lot of great uses I'm not gonna say that it's all bad, but when I Played around with it just to see write a 12 sign horoscope I mean the writing is so terrible and it's filled with these really recognizable cliches and it's so obvious That many people are posting on their original blogs, on their social media, in their email newsletters. I've received tons and tons of examples where people haven't even written a thing. They literally just asked the bot to write their astrology. And now that I know what the cliches are, I can see it everywhere. So there's that much laziness going on. And of course, it's just regurgitation.

Frederick: 35:38

Go ahead,

Elsa: 35:38

I was gonna say that it has a psychological effect on people. Everyone says no, it doesn't, but it absolutely does. And it's going to be very hard to fully express yourself because you're your sun sign or whatever, and all the nuances and things that make people an individual. you teach all the people to hate a certain sign. What I mean? Yeah. It's gonna, it's gonna cripple young people's gonna cripple them rather than enhance their life.

Rachel: 36:03

Yeah. It's insane. I really feel you. I do see this and it's pretty scary and I didn't. I didn't even know that big tech was using astrology against people until two weeks ago. I mean, I feel dumb. I did not even think about it.

Frederick: 36:20

I had not heard that at all, but it doesn't surprise me either, given the landscape of things right now.

Rachel: 36:26

Of course. And it's happening in China right now. my question was, in a secular, communist country, they don't even allow their own citizens to embrace the old ways, like, why are they being categorized and discriminated against? Based upon Western astrology, it made no sense to me. But then I realized, Oh, of course, because of how many gigantic American corporations have inserted themselves into China.

Frederick: 36:56

Well, also China is obsessed with this kind of social grading

Andrei: 37:03

What is it called, Andre? Social credit score.

Frederick: 37:06

social credit scores, which is absolutely taken right out of that show, Black Mirror. Yeah. And it's real there though. So it would make sense that astrology would be another thing dovetailed into that. It's nuts as that sounds. if you're a Scorpio or a Virgo, look out,

Rachel: 37:26

you're a Virgo, you forget about having a job and forget about anyone ever going on a date with you.

Elsa: 37:33

going to kill themselves. Seriously. Yeah. I mean, I'm speaking as speaking to somebody again, who learned astrology as a child. Astrology is really becoming detrimental. Yeah. That you can, you can't access the other kind. I mean, that's where it's headed. I guess I can speak to this a little bit because I've been blogging so long. And so you used to write. in the old days, if you searched an aspect, my site would be on the front page five or six times. Seriously, it was massively dominant.

Frederick: 38:05

I remember that.

Elsa: 38:07

And when the first drop in traffic came when they started to put the little excerpt, some of the clicks, they started keeping the clicks. You see what I mean? What's Mars and Aries? A little box would pop up. This is a long time ago. It's become a lot more sophisticated, but now there's only three, if you ask for the, what is Mars and Aries, you're going to get three offerings. And they're going to all be stupid and you can't learn anymore and it's giving this veneer astrology that's not useful and is destructive.

Frederick: 38:37

When you think about your site and the way you're interacting with your readers, how is that impacting what you're doing with them?

Elsa: 38:46

It's very detrimental on me because see, now I understand I sit there and wrote and wrote for, more than two decades. And now I didn't know at the time, and, the blogging was supported. Now I understand that everybody, not just astrology, all the bloggers like empty their knowledge into the AI. You see what I mean? And so now we're replaced. With people who can be controlled Rachel's friend did not want to give her birth chart. Well, the person that gives their birth chart is going to get that job. And then they're going to ask you to do more. And they're going to ask you to do something else. And you're going to not be able to have your own opinions because they want you to steer things this way. And then you're just a tool to see, It's there's not, I mean, if you used, it used to be that you could search an aspect and you can get completely different takes, well thought out from people who have a lot of experience, that is gone.

Frederick: 39:39

Yeah, well, I think Google just this month has replaced their normal search results with AI results. And you can, I think there's a setting that you can use to get back to the old school way, but pretty much now it's the equivalent of chat, GPT, bringing up like, what mercury and cancer. It's so annoying.

Elsa: 40:06

can see. They just, they have control of, they, yeah, this is not a free platform. It is, the results aren't organic, obviously. And so they're, the big tech is in control of what you can see. And what they are allowing you to see is nowhere near enough to really learn astrology.

Frederick: 40:27

I

Elsa: 40:27

Like if you're starting right now and trying to learn it online.

Frederick: 40:30

Yeah, what has happened too is that as people's attention span has shifted people like all of us that are primarily writers though Elsa, I know you do more video stuff, but it's really, people have migrated all to the reels, the video clips. the YouTube university or whatever. It's, or even audio books really are more. So the art of reading has really taken, a beating in this techno shift that the internet promotes. Because if you look at from the day, say the, Netscape or Mosaic came online with a search engine, I don't know, that was 30 years ago, maybe, to now, the whole beat and rhythm from then to now has been quicker quicker, quicker. which is like shorter attention span, to where we're at now, which is looking at TikTok clips that are, five to 10 seconds long and then going to the next, dopamine hit, basically so deep learning, I just, I don't know. My, my hope is that with Pluto going into Aquarius. It'll, there's some kind of comeuppance is coming to this tech dominance. I mean, what's your take on that, Elsa?

Elsa: 42:10

I guess I'd say I live in hope. I associate Saturn with comeuppance is one thing. So that probably throws me off a little bit. I don't know how to unseat the, this power, the way I see the internet. These days like the Internet was fun. It was wild. It was free. And I feel like the Internet is now the exact same thing as the TV and organic original normal people just like you're me and we just kind of homegrown. You can't get on TV and today you can't get on the Internet either.

Frederick: 42:40

Yeah.

Elsa: 42:41

Okay. So you go there, this is what bothers me. So I go, cause I want to subscribe to you. And then it gives me three or four other AI astrologers on the side. You want to try these people out. You see what I mean?

Frederick: 42:53

Yeah, they're trying to grow their audience.

Elsa: 42:55

they needed real people to write and we did it so long that they're just writing junk. I mean, what's on TV. It's horrible. I mean, how long, how old is that song, whatever, how many channels, nothing on and look where we're at.

Frederick: 43:09

Yeah, the

Elsa: 43:10

internet has become like the TV where like a organic mom and pop kind of person can't get an audience that they. It appears that they can because people who are, with a huge audience have a fake backstory what I mean? And I can say this because I had help initially I had help I mean I was hooked up with those people who started zanga

Frederick: 43:34

So you're what you're saying right now is that ability? To get on and what grow like a video audience?

Elsa: 43:41

Oh yes. It's night and day. it's have young people talk about people in our era were able to buy a house with this much of your salary. Those days are gone.

Frederick: 43:50

So when I was doing

Elsa: 43:52

I would love to see the Internet, but I feel like it's just like the TV. You, and I'm talking about YouTube, YouTube and, pe it's I don't know, it's fake. The people aren't necessarily who they say that they are.

Andrei: 44:06

that's 100% true.

Elsa: 44:08

It is.

Andrei: 44:08

I've really recognized this. I'll put my dance cap on for a second. And I was really slow on the uptake to have that revelation because. you sit here and see these people come through on your stream Like you said they have these rather fantastical origin stories which They were coached on they were actually taught how to have a captivating origin story Even if they didn't because this is one of the prime Directives of marketing to always capture your audience with a captivating origin story. what really got me to start recognize it, it was just the, it was like a K I was like a cave man, like putting two stones together to make fire or something. when I started following what was going on in Hollywood, with the strikes. we live in LA, so we've got a lot of industry friends I can verify that what a lot of the YouTubers were reporting during the strikes, which is that Hollywood is lying about how much it's making on these blockbusters. And it's lying about how much it's spending there. They are overspending up to sometimes nearly a billion dollars. Like the recent Indiana Jones movie, it's been estimated that they spent nearly a billion dollars between production and marketing on that film. And it was an utter flop. Hollywood has been infiltrated by the tech company, so they're operating on this premise and this whole post truth world, like marketing that Mark Twain lies, damn lies and statistics outage has really come to a boiling point where everything is just a 100 percent in total fabrication you're being told. Like it's actually written, it's priced in, it's written into the script that if you want to succeed in this world, you really just have to lie about how much money you're making, about how good your life is, about how happy you are. that's when you'll get the followers and that's when you'll get the likes and that's when you'll get the shares. But if you for one moment, like actually want to be yourself and be a real authentic person, then, you're relegated to, probably having 20 followers and, one or two likes on your posts. And one of those is always from your mom. So

Elsa: 46:11

You got it. So then, people who are organically talented. You really have something to say and a way to say it. They can't get an audience. they're going to quit.

Andrei: 46:21

Yeah. No, it's true. It's true. I was like, when you came on, I really got I heard the Mars Mercury in your voice. And I really got, this is somebody you don't usually run into in these online spaces. And I've been wanting to ask this whole time because I could tell you're an organic person. I could tell that if we bumped into each other outside the circle k We're probably going to get into one of those pretending to get in my car for, 45 minutes while we actually just keep talking kind of conversations.

Elsa: 46:49

Thank you.

Andrei: 46:51

But you don't meet people like that on it's cause it is also cultivated. You're trained on how to be, and this is the word I want to get to engaging. Because what you were mentioning about substack that like, when you're on a platform like that, you're really just the bait to get the traffic sucked into their funnel, not yours there.

Elsa: 47:10

Exactly,

Andrei: 47:11

And it's comes down to this word engagement, where RA Rachel's dad is a really hip cat. He understand, he could see how the world works. He sees what's going on in the on the online sphere, mercury

Frederick: 47:21

He's

Andrei: 47:21

Mercury and Scorpio. and one of the things he was saying, he was talking about is that where if you are in the online business and I did, online again, I'm not, I don't know if these stats are true, but online learning is one of the fastest growing industries right now in the tech sphere specifically not because of the classes or the course content or the teachers, it's because of these communities that you get to be a part of. Which is the new TV because, now the TV talks back to you, you could talk to the TV and it talks back to you. You can quote unquote engage with it. so what Rachel's dad pointed out was that, back in the thirties, during the economic crisis, during the great depression, entertainment was booming. And now as we just pointed out, entertainment is actually failing, but these tech platforms are rising. Things like online learning communities are becoming a thing. And so the one thing he just didn't get was that the focus has shifted from entertainment to engagement. I personally just like being entertained. I'd prefer listening to my, my favorite David Bowie record on repeat. Then I do a fascinating new podcast with with the hottest new guest with the leading expert in X, Y, Z field. and that's why, formally in a world like people like you, Elsa, or I don't know, I would like to hope to think that a guy like me had a chance people just that were interesting and strange and offbeat and had something to say and it cannot be replicated to me, that's entertainment. And I think that's what's being lost in this world that's so focused on engagement. because entertainment is subjective. So I'm sorry.

Elsa: 48:55

I agree. And then also it's just, It's all owned by the machine. Like that. And that is, so there is no true outsider opinion. It's just the closed system. The system. There's no more, it's just closed. Like you can't go on TV and have your time.

Frederick: 49:15

Yeah. the big platforms have trained people to work for them for free and then go them to continue to make content that's engaging. Because, then they can sell that to the advertisers and blah, blah, blah. going back to what I was saying about Pluto and Aquarius and the idea of come up I understand what you said about Saturn. being more of that association with that experience. But I think in the way I was using it, this is the whole techno electronic info age mania now with the introduction of AI. I think it's blooming and engorging itself to a point that it's like a bubble that's going to pop. And actually I think the AI thing will be what the Achilles heel is. because a lot of it's like Emperor's new clothing with AI. I mean, yes, there's certain functions that it can do and some time saving things, but the tech thing has reached some kind of a limit. And I see this when I get like new updates on the iPhone, say, and I put them on I'm like, Oh, okay, is it going to be faster? Is it going to be, some new, and it's just new emojis that are the new update. They can't get the thing to go any faster or do, so there's always this hype with tech about new, cutting edge, revolutionary, but we're actually at a point where the Pluto element, now that it's slid into it, Aquarius, it's kind of exposing the rot that's there. I mean, if you follow Elon Musk, who's supposedly this, avatar of brilliance. With tesla and starlink and a lot of it's just crap if you follow like what happened with the new trucks that they release that are falling apart on everybody and teslas are all sitting by Thousands like in lots everywhere. Nobody's buying them because there's nowhere to charge them and the neural links are falling out of the guy's brain that was able to move his mouth his mouse by thinking about it because of this fucking thing in his head I so to me It's the emperor's new clothing phenomenon starting to happen and I think That will force people back into Something more organic in their life Like they'll just have hit a tipping point with everything tech, everything instant, everything electric, everything now. And I just don't think the human nervous system can handle it. And Aquarius being an air sign and connected to the intellect and the nervous system. I think people are number one, probably going to be going psychotic from all of this input or they're unplugging and then just. downsizing back into kind of a sane rhythm in their life. What do you guys think about that?

Andrei: 53:00

I think my, I'm how deep am I now in my like AI experiment? How deep

Frederick: 53:05

is your love?

Andrei: 53:06

Yeah. How deep I'm like, well, some might call it an addiction. I call it a self medication.

Elsa: 53:13

Yeah.

Andrei: 53:13

I call it a passion. No I'm about three months deep into this now.

Frederick: 53:17

My AI,

Andrei: 53:18

yeah, into AI, my take on my, I honestly, the thing that keeps coming to my mind is like back in the nineties, there was this not even, it wasn't, no, it wasn't even a scientific study. It was a, it was like a blurb in a scientific journal that suggested that the club drug GHB may produce the human growth hormone. And this created this online, it spread like wildfire, created this rumor in the raver community that GHB is the human growth hormone. And so it created this trend of these kids just dropping out of life entirely and just becoming addicted to this drug and literally just wasting away the whole time thinking that they were like superhuman, like super people that were going to live forever, that we're never going to age, never going to die. And that they were getting stronger and stronger by the day. Because the nature of the drug, GHB is a disassociate, the nature of the drug is to actually make you 100 percent and totally delusional and believing in everything that pops into your head. And I, that's been my impression with the AI thing, is that I think that it's like this GHB human growth hormone for the tech world, where They're sitting around going no, dude, look, I can lift this egg carton with one hand. It's increased my productivity so much. Again, that's, and that's, it goes back to this like engagement, entertainment thing. What's so important about increasing your productivity? Why is this, have we actually stopped to ask, why is it more important to create, increase your productivity then? To say, increase your creativity or to actually just focus on your creativity without it being turned into some kind of metric

Frederick: 54:54

live in

Andrei: 54:54

Late phase capitalism now where everything has to be commodified. Yeah, we live in late stage civilization. I mean, at a certain point, I think the capitalism thing is gonna, He's going to burst too, or that's not, that's going to not even be a big enough.

Frederick: 55:06

isn't this all kind of like a male, like beaver dream? I mean, are women, what do you notice about this Elsa? Like through the, because I know you have a lot of But primarily women moving through elsaelsa. com like what it doesn't this seem to be a male like fetish it are women into AI in this kind of crazed way

Elsa: 55:37

Not your average Population but there's a lot of women in tech now, a lot of women, and I'm more like recently had a client and she works in on AI and they're starting to become uncomfortable with what they're doing, because they know they're replacing people,

Frederick: 55:54

Look at that great example with Scarlett Johansson

Rachel: 55:59

What happened?

Frederick: 56:00

Well, she had done that great voiceover in that movie called Oh Yeah. Her, because she has a great sultry kinda low registered voice.

Elsa: 56:10

Yeah.

Frederick: 56:11

So the guys that chat, what's his name, Sam. Zuckerberg or what?

Andrei: 56:18

Sam

Frederick: 56:18

something or rather Altman?

Andrei: 56:21

I think it's

Frederick: 56:23

Altman. Sam Altman decided he wanted Scarlett Johansson to be the voice of chat GBT so they approached her agent they pitched her she goes, no, I don't want to be associated with this. What did they do? They found an actress that sounds like Johansson and went ahead and created that voice that sounds like Scarlett Johansson. And of course now she's taken them to court and pulled the vocal thing down. But it was just, I don't know, just the vibe of it was so like Piggish, She said no. They're like, fuck it, we're taking it anyway.

Andrei: 57:09

so oblivious. It's like getting James Earl Jones to do the Darth Vader voice to promote your next war or something.

Frederick: 57:14

it's but again, this is some tech bros, wet Dream, to have her as this voice. for the fucking robots or whatever. But it, just the ethics is what I'm saying. It's she says, no, they're like, we don't care. We're doing it anyway. And that's pretty much going back to Elsa's point about all these platforms basically run and control everything. It's you don't like it? Fuck it. We don't care. We're doing this anyway. I mean, I've had so many artist friends, just have their entire Instagram, because maybe they were doing work that was more like erotic art photography or whatever, just completely nuked within a day. All of their work just, evaporated. Because some, scold in Taiwan that saw, perhaps a nipple on one of the models, decided to pull the plug on the person's account. And that's the general, that's the crazy level of Pluto and Aquarius vibe that we're in now that I'm thinking is just gonna like kind of implode on itself over the next 20 years or so.

Elsa: 58:35

See, I hope you're right. But this is my, this is I don't I disagree. I hope you're right. Say it girl. Why? I'm going to, because my observation of Pluto is it does not solve these problems. as an example, Pluto, I think that Pluto reveals the shadow side, just like you're talking about, but didn't, Pluto on Capricorn, the shadow side of the government. Has it fixed it? No. go back one. Pluto and Sagittarius. That was like about publishing and also the rape in the Catholic Church. Shadow side of religion. Is it fixed? No. Pluto and Scorpio is where if you went out, walked outside and every magazine had incest on the cover. Remember that?

Frederick: 59:15

Well, not to mention AIDS.

Elsa: 59:17

closet. AIDS. Is it fixed? No. It doesn't sign does not it reveals it turns it up, but it does not reveal it Pluto in Libra. That was like the end of marriage.

Frederick: 59:30

Totally.

Elsa: 59:31

Okay. It's wiped out. No, I don't see this being fixed.

Frederick: 59:35

So what do you think

Elsa: 59:36

world? I think what you adapt. And live in the world that we have. I mean, I just, I think that I hear that a lot. when Pluto gets to Aquarius, it's going to fix everything. And I think, what are you talking about?

Frederick: 59:51

I'm saying more like kind of expose, exposing

Elsa: 59:55

I agree, but see, you'll do it you, like you're at this age and your life experience, you will, I moved to the country, I really checked way off, We'll do that. But you have to think about the people who are, the younger people are coming up and I, I just pay attention to all kinds of weird things. And for example, if people want to resist like a digital ID, and they don't want to use their phone and that, then they can say, well, you save this money if you do the checkout on your phone, and they don't want to do that. And then you go to the internet, say like Reddit. To these, and it'll be covered with people who done a great, it's all fake. I think it's all fake, but they're denigrating any idiot moron who won't use their phone to check out what a pain in the ass they are. And there's like social pressure, you see, and they corral them into doing what you're not going to do. So you can, and then, the world belongs to the young people, but the young people coming up, they're not like me. They have no problem. Rachel's talking about that app, but this is these platforms as well. They're also, I mentioned it's just weird how this comes up. I mentioned that first computer I had, I wasn't online, I typed my addresses into that computer. I was never online with that computer ever in my life. And whatever, 20 years later, I buy a cell phone and all my contacts come up from that computer people I haven't talked to in 30 years.

Frederick: 1:01:21

phone.

Elsa: 1:01:25

yeah, the things we're talking about are gonna happen. They already happened. I don't understand why people don't get excited. I remember when Google drove by my house and stole everything off my Wi Fi. I mean, how do we tolerate that?

Rachel: 1:01:41

I don't know. I mean, very good question. I really do have a problem with it personally, and I've been pretty aware of how serious this is my whole life. However, as you said, I eventually came to a point where I had no choice but to get a smartphone in order to have my job at the time, etc. It just is, it is forced in many ways. And as far as my trust and gullibility I never trusted or put any faith in these corporate entities, these, really these fascist entities, because they are corporations that work with the government, and that combination is actually the definition of fascism I'm really concerned and it disturbs me a lot. This was before the government came out publicly and said, we're going to spy on you with impunity. This is the 90s. This is when people still thought the internet's like some utopia and we're all going to get connected and, it's going to democratize knowledge and we're all going to connect, global village, that kind of stuff. I was just having a conversation with my friend, and I was just joking around with her, and I told, I had seen this movie called In the Line of Fire. It was In the Line of Fire. Yeah, In the Line of Fire, yeah. And it's a political thriller from the early 90s. And, it's about this Vietnam vet who's gone insane and he has this plan to assassinate the president. He does this he makes a plastic gun so that he can get past the metal detectors and he tries to assassinate the president. I was joking around with my friend and I was talking about this movie, but I was acting as though I was speaking these lines. I was speaking the lines of the villain. And I'm like, I'm gonna kill the president and I know how. And I said, I'm gonna make a plastic gun. I was doing movie lines with my friend. Now I didn't think anything of it. I logged off and two days later my mom comes in and she's I have something very serious to talk to you about. I'm like, what? What did I do? Oh my god. I was seriously being a good kid. I didn't know what the fuck was wrong. And I find out that the FBI had showed up at my friend's house to question the person who was disseminating threats against the president's life. This was Clinton. Yeah, we were seventh grade girls and we didn't do anything and we didn't have a platform. this was a private chat on AOL and we were just, Messing around like it could not have sounded like anything but 12 year old girls, but because I spoke in the first person movie lines, those

Andrei: 1:04:14

I'm

Rachel: 1:04:14

not even joking and they questioned her now. Why did they question her not me? because she Had she thought that our chat was fun And so she copied it and put it into an email chain to four of our friends. And I guess it got forwarded by a couple of people. So because it got forwarded a few times, and I mean, this is nothing compared to the kind of branching tree that you could get on social media or even a message board. This was, like, Just a tiny little email chain that she had created which I knew nothing about I wasn't a part of that she didn't realize that there was anything wrong with that either because there really isn't anything wrong with that But she was terrorized by the federal government Her mom was terrorized by the federal government now, obviously they didn't do anything It really was just a little girl, but They thought it was cool to show up and interrogate and investigate and let us know that's not cool. You're not allowed to say that you want to kill the president. And I was like, aware from that moment on how serious this is. they are definitely I always knew they were invading our privacy, tapping our phone calls, looking at everything that we do. And yeah, it's very concerning to me. I'm not quite sure why everybody puts up with it. I really don't know, and I'm happy to

Frederick: 1:05:33

Well, because the generation younger than you, at this point, they're totally inculcated into it. Oh, it's no big deal. Gmail reads all of my because they want to sell me shoes or, that they've just been trained into this sort of obedience to the way that the thing is rigged and set up, But I, so I'm going to ask Elsa, like what, so given what we've been talking about here, How, what do you see with what you're doing, with your site and somebody who's like a leader with, say, the dispersion, dispersing astrological information, knowledge, dialogue, communication. What do you see coming up for yourself related to this? Honestly,

Elsa: 1:06:31

What you have all this traffic, like I described, earlier and just be comes down, dials down, dial down. They're not going to send. They want everyone to be on these platforms where you can be tracked. There's no use for me to go on a platform. It's not just because I'm going to be tracked for what, for the reason I've already explained, because you're just going to, you are the bait to be, directed over to somebody who is putting forth whatever message that they want to put out there. And it just you can't it's not sustainable because like you have a website and there's like attrition, right? And you need to have new people coming in. And if Google is people continue to use it, right? They do. And, the Google results are also replicated by the other search engines. You just can't find it. They can't find you. It's like having a business. being a restaurant when you drive by you can't see that restaurant will go out of business

Frederick: 1:07:32

But see you and I and to a lesser degree andre and rachel really we Remember the days of where you could put a site up and you could Thrive from the organic traffic that came in It now is geared totally Me To, what you can pay to have, yourself. Show up in results or whatever. The entire internet has gone to shit because of that even going to amazon, you search, for a particular brand of lotion and then you're given like 15 Sponsored ads for lotion. You don't even want comes up top and That's the whole thing now. The internet has completely turned into just a commercial sales machine. The you're saying, well, retirement, so that you're saying that's the option for you versus Getting more aggressive, like with advertising or things like that?

Elsa: 1:08:45

Well, I mean, yeah, I think so. I'm surprised that there's not more people participating in my forum these days because it is private. You don't have to have your name. You're not IDed. I don't sell anybody's anything. I don't care what name you put. I don't care if your email is fake. I don't care. I want to talk to human beings and they go because people go where they can take the views that you have and change the number, they can inflate them. They can deflate them. It's all manipulated. It's all, it's, there's algorithm changing this. I understand now that they can, they send out an ad and they can alter the ad in almost real time. did you look at the ad? If you didn't, then I'll give you a new ad, a new version of the ad. You see what I mean?

Frederick: 1:09:30

Yeah.

Elsa: 1:09:31

You have to have people able to find your business.

Frederick: 1:09:35

Well, what does that do for you?

Elsa: 1:09:37

I mean, Google sends me notes. Like I had paintings. I used to use paintings and they like some of the astrology sort of themed or, of the gods, they're nude or, somewhat nude and they flag that stuff. And, you can't put that on there and you can't have a swear word and you can't have a, And it's like eventually just going to de platform you. They're starving people out. It's they're just, you can't stay in business when you don't have anyone when people can't find your business. So I can go on Twitter and I'm just shadow banned, or you're just truncated or you're hidden. You see what I mean?

Frederick: 1:10:17

Sure. Yeah, totally. I think Andre and Rachel do too, because we don't quite play with that fervor that people that are rigging. Things, are able, to do. And that's the thing instead of being able to create like really great writing or content or whatever, a person has to spend 80 percent of their time trying to rig the algorithm or whatever, create the engagement and then the more that you create, the more that Instagram will show you, the less you put up, the less you get seen. I mean, it's like working for free for these goddamn, corporations, but I don't know. I mean, that's one side of the equation. It's what. So for yourself, Elsa, do you see, well, I'm okay. I'm going to step back from that and then just focus on, private consultations with your clients or like you're just wanting. Yeah.

Elsa: 1:11:15

Well, yeah. it's just, I used to just ride and ride and ride and ride and ride and ride. And I love to write, there's people there and they're talking to you and they, there's an energy exchange. I have a packed eighth house. Okay. There's no energy. I'm supposed to, produce. And then, very few people consume and nobody interacts with me. And it's what am I doing? You see what I mean?

Frederick: 1:11:36

Yeah, I get it.

Elsa: 1:11:37

And the thing about it is it's not personal to me. This is, it's by design. They used us to, get the information into AI. They need a certain number of people producing daily content or whatever, but not for long, right? And they don't need you anymore. It's like people being laid off from their jobs.

Frederick: 1:11:58

Sure, I get it. I mean, that's why the New York Times is suing them for billions. Because every news story that's been written in the time since they went live, I don't know how many years ago, AI has slurped it all up and repackaging it, and they're not getting a dime.

Elsa: 1:12:20

you're telling me. I mean, the way it is now, like you write and then somebody, like a younger person, they come and take my idea and they rewrite it somewhat and put it on Reddit and gain a following off my ideas, which are actually, informed over decades. 40 years more and so you feel a little stupid after a while,

Frederick: 1:12:44

This is awful.

Elsa: 1:12:45

right.

Frederick: 1:12:46

upside of any of this?

Rachel: 1:12:48

Something that I have always kind of ended up in, which is underground subculture, which is actually pretty awesome. And I do think that there is definitely a support for that in the Aquarian subculture. Spirit, I feel like underground subcultural movements can become really powerful. And actually, I mean, that's how Christianity took over Rome. It started as an underground catacombs subculture, for example. But one example just from the astrological history, the astrological world is, the really dramatic history of astrology in England during Well, after the Gutenberg printing press was invented, and then there was an information age right there at everyone's fingertips, and there was some civil war, and I can't remember the years, so please forgive me, but there was a civil war in the late 1500s, and something about what went down after the civil war just obliterated the censorship laws. And so there was England, no censorship and all these printing presses. And there was this huge astrological renaissance during the Elizabethan era, the almanac, the nativities horary, and everyone was into astrology. It was Common language and it was super popular and it had so many uses. It's all through Shakespeare It's in all the poetry. It's such a huge part of the Renaissance in England and then in the late 18th century and then again in the early 19th century there were these laws that were passed against fortune telling and witchcraft and sorcery and these were like heavy handed authoritarian laws that were intended. Not actually to protect religion so much, but at this point, it's a scientific revolution thing. They're actually really doing this work to separate, marginalize, and, defame the people who are outside of the scientific paradigm. And so at that point, astrology was criminalized. And you could, in fact, do two years in prison, which was the same sentence for sodomy. That was what Oscar Wilde was given. Sodomy and astrological predictions, published astrological predictions could be two years in prison.

Andrei: 1:15:27

They'd have been trying to get him on the astrology prediction for years.

Rachel: 1:15:31

But really it truly is. And I learned about this because there's this amazing archive online of all these old astrological journals and magazines and One of them is the it's one of the older ones that they have on there, and it's the astrologer of the 19th century. I also learned something about this movement through William Blake and his crew. So William Blake hung out with these astrologers, and they were these underground subcultural communities. They were marginalized. They weren't thrown in jail just for being astrologers, but yeah, their voices were silenced, their ability to express themselves restricted. The potential for going to jail obviously kept this pretty quiet. However, there was so much great work being done, and these journals were really beautiful, really good research, a lot of amazing things still stirring in that subject and a really great community. There was a lot of really awesome people like William Blake connected to this world. He himself was not like an astrologer. I think he knew a lot, but it was one of his closest friends that he went to art school with that was actually a prominent astrologer. And what did they have? They had fake names. they had their little poetic book club societies with their fake names. They never published under their names. And so there is that element, which is to me it's disturbing that it had to be so hush. It's disturbing that it was criminalized by the government. I do not agree with that. At the same time, they made it work. They allowed things to flower and flourish. They were publishing really high quality, super beautiful journals. And they were in tune with the cream of the crop in terms of the great thinkers and the great artists of that time. for me, I feel like it's only natural for there to be a thriving underground. Of sorts, and I think that's where we're coming from on this podcast, the Outsider Astrology Podcast, I'm trying to look at that as a positive thing, rather than feeling so, I don't want to fit in the status quo, I really don't, to me that always represents the absolute worst of the worst if you are totally aligned with the mainstream, if the mainstream is making a lot of sense to you, And you feel absolutely no concern, you're not having any existential crisis, you're not asking any questions, that's a really bad sign. I think Elsa's right, but I also feel like we really need to look at the potential for having, Bad respect and also really appreciating that the subcultural element could be something that actually is good for astrology because, yeah, the oversaturation and also the ridiculous stereotypes and like this mentality is so dumb and it's not going to flourish any further in that context. But. To me, I feel like now the internet could be used to like, the way that zines and these like old newsletters used to capture people here and there and say this is your little window, this is your flyer, this is your invitation to find the underground subculture. So I do think we can still do that.

Frederick: 1:18:50

think about that, Elsa?

Elsa: 1:18:53

Well, I think she's right for our generation. I'm not sure. I think the young people really do like the phone, I mean, I agree, but what she brought to mind. There's a couple of things. The 1st is my 1st hit on Pluto and Aquarius. I wrote the 1st blog post about him in 2015, and it was called Pluto and Aquarius down with people, the machines and then the other thing is Rachel was talking. I've been reading a psychiatrist, What's important is, what's it, people who fare well in a time like this is you've got to recognize what's happening so you can keep your sanity. like people, what Rachel's talking about is only going to, the only people who participate in that are going to be people who can see what is happening and a lot of people can't see what's happening.

Frederick: 1:19:45

But what's happening for you given this experience today? I was just flashing on this with your what you'd shared about Mars. And your Mercury in Libra, and then this big transit that's happening now with all everything, coming over from Gemini with Jupiter there maybe something that goes like into a whole new format of communicating for you.

Elsa: 1:20:17

I'm having a chat with a variety of people. And we're going to broadcast this

Frederick: 1:20:21

exactly. But I'm just thinking outside of this podcast for you, looking at things like an audio book or something where you're just able to cut loose. and make that available to people. I know my friend, Jessica Murray, that's pretty much what, even though she keeps her site going, she shifted over to doing basic, MP3 recordings where she's, sharing information, knowledge, her experience, insights, and then, she markets those. To people, and that's a mode that's been working for her.

Elsa: 1:21:06

Okay, I see what you're asking now I wouldn't because of Mars and Mercury being in Libra, I would have to have a partner. What I mean? I really do not with that. Just having a conversation, just talking into the air. I hate that. And I have Mars and Mercury and I also have a packed eighth house. where's the blood, where's the meat, where's the energy? I have a lot of energy and I, so if you had somebody to in fact, I wanted to do that with that. Dr. Z, the first person I met on the internet, I wanted to do a, he said, she said astrology book. Because it's sharp, so am I. And I thought, based on the Saturday Night Live, Jay and you ignorant slut, I wanted to have that kind of write a book with dialogue talking about the astrology aspect. So I could do something like that. And then as far as my website, I just, this is, I had to do something, because I'm definitely making less money. So I went on Fiverr. And I just took a chance. Yeah, I know. Fiber those guys, tech people.

Frederick: 1:22:09

Yeah.

Elsa: 1:22:10

Okay. So I hired somebody, they really want my side. Everything's brand new and I hired somebody else and I moved it to, it took my hosting bill down by 90%. So I will be able to keep my side up regardless. but I'm talking about writing and be involved in writing and having my blood pumping and spinning out this and being funny. I can't do that with nobody talking to me. I'm not going to, a comedian is going to have an audience. I mean this. No, I do For what I do, I need to have an audience. I have Venus and Leo, I have Mars and Mercury and Libra. If I'm not talking to another person, why am I talking? Well, today's the great in a single voice.

Frederick: 1:22:52

Today's a great priming of the pump, then Yeah. Are the, do we want to do anything like the, four of us now on some, just shift gears? Looking at, I don't know, transits, the election, Trump.

Rachel: 1:23:12

I'd love to hear Elsa's view and opinion of, the upcoming astrology, particularly in the fall. So yeah, for sure.

Elsa: 1:23:20

Well, I'm going to be disappointed here because I don't pay attention to politics at all. I find that to be like, I consider it like theater and it gets everybody divided and it's against everything. I believe to divide people. I don't like that. And I think it's just have everybody fighting. They have everybody fighting everybody. And I just find that evil.

Rachel: 1:23:42

I think

Elsa: 1:23:43

it's evil.

Rachel: 1:23:44

I like that

Andrei: 1:23:44

Yeah. That's why you're definitely allowed to eat at our cool kid lunch table.

Elsa: 1:23:49

cool kid lunch table before.

Rachel: 1:23:51

asking for your opinion on who should win

Frederick: 1:23:54

just the weather astro weather that we're heading into the rest of the year.

Andrei: 1:23:58

How is the astro weather going?

Elsa: 1:24:03

I wish I had something to contribute. I don't because I don't look ahead like that. I'm sort of in the moment. my observation right now is that we're still in the pandemic, all the planets became clustered up together when we were locked down I really hate that. all I know about what's coming up is we got another year or two when all the planets get tightly clustered like that, it gives me with Mars, Mercury and the 9th, it's like claustrophobic. Anyway, I write a newsletter, besides my blog and the forum, I write a newsletter. And I do send out the forecast, but I don't unless there's something big coming. I know that like, Twitter, people are talking in the new doom date is mid July, I think it's Mars around us, and I just kind of look at things when they come when I see them. Right now, I know that people are looking at that. And I actually have all the, trump and Biden and Republican and Democrat. I have all those words blocked on Twitter, so I don't even see it. I want to be happy. I don't want to hate

Frederick: 1:25:06

people. I

Elsa: 1:25:06

I blocked them three years ago, all the politics.

Frederick: 1:25:10

But that's interesting because people will often ask me like with whatever I'm doing well, what are the transits for that? And I'm like, I really don't know. I look at my chart maybe once or twice a year. I just am kind of, just living, going along, I'll have some kind of an idea of things, but I'm also that school. I don't really focus much on The, I guess the, closer in aspects, Mars doing this and Jupiter doing that though we do try to bring some of that flavor into the podcast here because we have to keep the algorithms out back. No, some of it's because I'm writing the

Elsa: 1:25:54

newsletter. I think you and I we're like. What you're writing is always very original and it's obviously your, it's what's on Frederick's mind, and your mind does not sound like everybody else,

Frederick: 1:26:06

Well, thank you.

Elsa: 1:26:07

know.

Frederick: 1:26:09

I'm sorry, what?

Elsa: 1:26:11

Well, like your writing, you always, your writing is very, it's very real and it's what's on your mind in the moment that you're observing. And it came to you organically. it's touched because of that. It came through. You we're not supposed to, the whole idea that you're an astrologer, you're supposed to know everything that's happening everywhere about everything. I don't. medical astrology. I mean, I'll pick a date for you, but as far as, some of the stuff astro cartography, I don't have any interest in it. So definitely not, so I don't, I just I just don't know. So I hear about things when I hear about them through, I work with a lot of clients. So I'll, when I come across something and I know what's going to happen because I see it in their chart, what I mean? When it comes to me organically, it has my attention.

Frederick: 1:26:57

And tell me about that. Like your style of working with clients. Do you have it more of what I call like the monologue school? Because sometimes when I get clients, they assume that I'm just going to talk about them for 50 minutes. But I'm a good dialectic school. I think Rachel and Andre are like that as well. How would you define your style of working with clients?

Elsa: 1:27:25

Well, I just sell the time and I ask them what they want to talk about. I think that I'm, Mars, Mercury, I'm very tactical thinker. I'm interested. I'm interested in relationships and philosophy, really the seventh through the ninth house. maybe the 10th house like career and stuff, but if I was going to promote myself, I have a strong interest in relationships and, how they function and how you can let your partner be an individual in a relationship. But I also trauma. because I'm from a traumatic background and I have a strong interest in psychology and people, like I've said, I've sometimes call myself the astrologer of last resort, got a hard core problem. the kind of thing that just is going to be repulsive to other people. Then I'm your girl, I'm a tactician. And I can figure it out. I can crack it. I'm a mastermind like that. whether you're trying to get ahead at work or trying to get beyond here, or you want to have the best outcome there, you want to know if you're fighting a stupid fight in court. my judgment's pretty good. And so they'll call me to say, am I messing up? And I tell them, yes, you are. No, you aren't. And a very direct, so I'm very direct. And I think that's why I get male clients because of Mars, Mercury.

Frederick: 1:28:40

Yeah, you were telling me that in that interview we did about men and women. Would you say your school of astrology is like more like Hellenistic or the evolutionary or it's just else?

Elsa: 1:28:54

It's, that was kind of, this is kind of going back a ways, but it is kind of interesting because my sister and I, we just learned, I had been studying astrology 20 years. I hope that's right about 20 years before I ever met another astrologer who isn't my sister ever. So we have completely, we were up in the desert in the middle of the desert. I mean, we just come out of the dirt and I moved to Denver and they had an astrology group there. it's first time I ever met another astrology. This, it was absolutely wild.

Frederick: 1:29:29

What were they teaching in that group?

Elsa: 1:29:32

it was around OJ Simpson, and I went in there with my mouth and I said some remark. There was a guy, super query, and I don't remember his name. He was very funny, and he tied that OJ Simpson to that comment. And then the comment gets penetrated, right? So I made this remark about OJ Simpson was effed. I made a comment in there, and I, it's the wrong thing to say I wasn't talking to my sister, what I mean? Anyway I used to go to those meetings, so I'm just saying, I really come from outside of whatever, I don't, I'm not in any kind of school. I mean, I just have a weird background. I was a 15 year old bartender and I tend to bar from the time I was 15 till I was 21. And I watched people relate in a bar and I was sober and I'm just interested in how, that's just my interest. So seventh, really seventh to the 10th house and just, interactions. I love oppositions. That's my favorite thing in astrology. I'm just fascinated with how oppositions work.

Frederick: 1:30:35

So you're, it's like, it's just hands on in the moment with people, no particular school, but would you say you're working, from like traditional basics moon and stars.

Elsa: 1:30:51

No, I don't think so. People call me with a problem that they want insight in. They want to, they don't have, they're out of ideas. They call me for ideas, an idea, or maybe it's an opinion of their idea to tinker tactics. Like tactics where I'm strong is I'm very candid. I'm always going to tell you the truth. I just don't care. I don't flatter people. So I'm going to be honest with you. Absolutely honest. And I'm definitely interested in relationships in every form. I really, have Mars and Mercury in the ninth house. So I like to work with Indian people and understand their culture. I remember when I first started to do this online, that was terrifying oh, my God, I don't know anything about India, well, I've learned so, but I think you call me when you need an opinion, your friends will tell you that you're perfect.

Frederick: 1:31:43

Well, that's what I was just going to ask. Do you pull punches with people? Like I'll speak for myself. Like a lot of times, if I see something, particularly gnarly. in the chart, I try to find a way to present that to them that isn't frightening or unnerving, that's going to leave them getting, off the phone with me, and then they're sort of haunted. by this prediction or reading or impression. Do you like just pull punches or do you go right in there and lay out what you're seeing

Elsa: 1:32:22

I think almost everyone who calls me they're relying on me to go right in there and they're calling with their tremendous problem and what they need is somebody to effectively sort this for them.

Frederick: 1:32:32

we

Elsa: 1:32:32

have to sort this for them in a way so they, they get a handle on it. And it always has to do, whatever I'm doing has to do with the transits. Right now most of the calls, almost everyone I talk to has a Saturn and Pisces, they're just they're disabled by the fear. That, they slipped on a banana peel and they're scared. And then I have to, what I do is get them grounded in the phone call in a half hour and explain to them what's going on and they're on their way. So it's efficient, Virgo, I'm efficient, I'm effective. And I said this and I, I mean it, I can do in an hour, what, six months of therapy easily. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Frederick: 1:33:10

That's what Carl.

Elsa: 1:33:11

I save you, you save you, you can go the slow way or you can go. And I think that, the way you're describing this, people are wanting you to perform, they're saying, here's my chart, what you can tell, and I think I'd go from another way. I say, what's on your mind? how can I help you and they tell me what they want and I use astrology to rip their problem to lay it out and make it not a problem by the end of the call. That's my goal.

Frederick: 1:33:36

Yeah, I think I can speak for myself. I'm similar. I think Rachel also works that way with people as well. It's like opening up the conversation, starting a dialectic. And going from there, as a cancer, meaning me, I think that I do try to stay sensitive to, and this comes from my own history. I remember going to Ojai once when I was like in my early 20s in California. Bunch of us went and saw a psychic there because it was kind of this thing, to do if you lived in Hollywood, a lot of the celebrities went to this person, blah, blah. And I remember this psychic telling me this shit that I swear to God for 30 years, it like haunted me. it was some, I forget some, something to do with a health issue and then some other thing and the health thing never occurred. But anytime there was the slightest quiver of something weird, I was like, Oh my God, is this, prediction gonna so that instilled in me a sort of caution about being, too direct, too specific, especially if something, was more adversarial or negative. That's in the chart. So I would find a way to address it, but in a way that, I was more careful about it. Is that how you work, Rachel?

Rachel: 1:35:12

Absolutely. I mean, I really want to say though I like what Elsa's describing too, because what I experienced with the astrology reading that I got from a super special prominent astrologer, they told me that I would. Always be poor and I had to work in an institution and it was a really terrible thing, but the difference between that experience and most likely i'm assuming frederick what you experienced with that prediction is that What else is doing is trying to help you like she's not just laying a heavy burden on you and Saying well, nice talking to you. There's like a problem solving attitude You That she's taking she's trying to diagnose and offer some actual guidance some real solutions And so I think there's a world of difference between someone who's trying to solve your problems which requires a certain level of honesty and somebody who just takes some kind of either unconscious or even perhaps conscious delight In making their clients feel afraid, insecure, less than, and I don't do that, I really do try to be very conscientious about people's feelings, and

Frederick: 1:36:30

Yeah, there's a lot of power abuse, I think, in astrology, and even the astrologers aren't really that, aware that they're doing it, but.

Elsa: 1:36:39

Yeah.

Frederick: 1:36:39

Elsa mentioning psychology with working with people is an important key, I think, because of the language that gives the astrologer to work with. And that's what kind of bothers me a lot, like with the Hellenistic or traditional school is, it's a lot of these old rules and applications of those. I don't know, just a lot of that stuff just seems crazy to me.

Rachel: 1:37:09

Go ahead.

Elsa: 1:37:11

I just want to thank you, Rachel, for, what you said in regards to me. That's exactly right. I do, I absolutely, everything I write in my mind is geared to help people. That is fundamental. Fundamental to me. And then I wanted to say that the Fed to Frederick, I meet people all the time who have been destroyed by some astrologers mouth. And my reaction is not caution. my reaction to that is rage. This makes it bad. And because I'm emphatic, I'm able to undo that damage. When I talk to somebody, there's this wrong. and I have this Capricorn like credibility, I have, I've earned it. And so I'm unable to fix those kinds of problems, but I run into them all the time. So know exactly what you're talking about.

Frederick: 1:37:55

Yeah. Well, my thing

Elsa: 1:37:57

Is you're not going to be judged. What's good. Just tell me what is the problem. I don't care what you did. Just, we're going to fix this. we're getting away. there's always a way, the worst thing you have to tell somebody is that might take longer than they like, then you can also tell them how to get through the period. What I mean? So I'm not going to tell somebody something without the absolute remedy and there's always a remedy anyway. I guess I'm a cowboy. But I have a great significant Capricorn. it's not reckless. It's controlled and effective. And I have, sometimes I do talk, and, sorry, I'm doing it now. I'll interrupt clients and I'll talk over them and I will tell'em, it's really up to them, But I'll tell'em, we have a half hour. I can solve this if you want. I can tell you exactly how to fix this. And then they usually want this to answer. they're calling me because they know that I'm gonna if you can't solve your problem, then you call me,

Frederick: 1:38:49

Yep.

Rachel: 1:38:50

That's awesome. I really appreciate the place you're coming from and To be honest, my favorite thing about our podcast is that I, and this is why Frederick and I first hit it off and Andre too, is that when I decided I'm going to become an astrologer, I did think that I was going to love the community and the scene and that other astrologers were going to be, So inspiring because they're going to be these free thinkers and these artists and people with a lot of interesting ideas and interesting stories. And I found quite the opposite for the most part, and it was really troubling, but it is absolutely true that there are those people out there. And that's, what's cool about our guests. They actually are what I had hoped to be. Mingling with and learning from and connecting with so

Frederick: 1:39:39

yeah, great point Rachel.

Rachel: 1:39:41

Thanks.

Frederick: 1:39:41

guys do you think this is it? Should we wrap this or is there any

Andrei: 1:39:45

Perfect

Rachel: 1:39:48

Yeah, thank you so much also Your life is fascinating, you're right, and I'm gonna check out your book for sure.

Andrei: 1:39:53

one thing before we do wrap up just my parting thoughts at least. One, thing that I think Rachel and Elsa and Frederic all have in common is that they're writers foremost before actually being astrologers. writing is the wine, astrology is the bottle. And this is always what attracts me to writers on the esoteric or the occult, is that they have some kind of grasp of what a writer's job is, what a writer's duty is, not simply to just regurgitate or spew words. But to engage with the reader through story. And through an intuitive, innate understanding of how a story works and what it is you want, what it is you want your story to pull out of the reader, and how it is you want that story to unfold. Where do you want to draw the reader's attention and why, and how do you do that? What kind of pro and most of these are questions that I don't think any really skilled writer naturally talented writer is even going to have a clear answer to Just kind of flows out and what i've always noticed about these merchant of doom type of astrologers or even Occultists in that regard is that their writing style is always this ham fisted pretentious of what they think, a 19th century esoteric journal would sound like I, I was raised Mormon. And the book of Mormon is written, quote, unquote, in like King James English, except that King James scholars have routinely just ripped it to shreds. this is like a charlatan trying to sound like King James English

Rachel: 1:41:22

bad actors.

Andrei: 1:41:23

And I think the more fatalistic you are, the less authorship. you have over your life. And that's also going to reflect in your writing style that there's actually going to be less of an authorial voice, less of a perspective. I think that's what

Frederick: 1:41:38

Elsa was saying about just the person just coming through what they're writing, like what's on there. It's germane to the moment and yeah, I think that's what distinguishes and creates a different vibe from what like you're describing. Because that's like somebody's, what you're talking about, Andre, that's like somebody's idea of Oh, well this should be couched this way.

Andrei: 1:42:05

yeah, it's somebody's idea of what good writing sounds like, But I just, because I've been looking at Elsa's blog this whole time and looking at passages of her book on Amazon and just really getting a feel for what it's about. And I could tell this is. I'm sorry, Elsa. I wasn't prepared. I'm the guy on this podcast that somehow at the last minute pulls it all together and cracks a few jokes that gets us the A, but I'm really enjoying what I'm seeing. I mean, I'm not just, to quote my grandmother, I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass. Like I'm really enjoying what I'm seeing and what it is for me. It's a problem I've been working on in my own head for, The last three or four weeks, which is this idea of, they're really everybody thinks they're a writer. Now everybody thinks they're a filmmaker. Now everybody thinks they're these, they, that they can, yes, technically be trained on how to do this, but it really just, it really, takes a natural gift to be able to tell a story in a captivating way that is, maybe it's your tale. it's an autobiographical story, but you're telling it for the audience's sake. So it's actually about them. this is just what I love. this is why it's so hard for me as an outsider to find things that I do in this online world because we're more and more losing just the unique perspective of somebody that just has a story to tell is being denigrated in favor of somebody that hits all the good marks

Elsa: 1:43:26

Well, that's true. And I appreciate the compliment. I think you guys got something great going here. And Rachel, I like what you said about the outsider stuff forming and that's what you guys have here. I'm really thrilled that you invited me. I'm flattered and flattered. I've enjoyed this and you give me hope. Yeah, good.

Frederick: 1:43:44

And we'll definitely have you back on again. Seems to be a great medium for you to. put all your gems out for everybody. And just to close and echo what Andre was saying, that is always what I've loved about your work, Elsa, is just the telling it like it is, the insouciance, just putting it out there, getting to the point, and with the client uppermost in your mind as somebody you're trying to assist or give, some sort of guidance to and I think that's a rare gift in this realm of a lot of like crazy ass people that are doing astrology nowadays. Bravo.

Elsa: 1:44:36

Thank you very much. I appreciate that greatly.

Frederick: 1:44:39

we're gonna wrap it. Andre will take us out,

Andrei: 1:44:43

Thank you. Thank you all for hanging out with us this long. I certainly hope you were entertained. But if you were not and you were merely engaged, then we do ask that you like, share and subscribe. And we'll, we don't have a cool bye-Bye. Say sign off thing. Do we, so I guess I'm just gonna have to like revert to my old corny same bat time, same bat hour for our next episode. That's great. All right. All right. Bye guys. Thanks Elsa. Yeah. Bye. Thank you, Elsa. And I'm going, what I'm going to do is I'm going to do that. Goodbye, everybody.