ASTROLOGICAL RESEARCH? The term research has nowadays become an obsession with the astrologer. Every Tom, Dick and Harry shamelessly makes high claims about their so-called research while advertising their services, in the books they publish and in the articles they write for the magazines. In the words of ri Bepin Behari: “...Presently, one finds that many 'astrologers' who have neither any schooling in research methodology nor the natural aptitude for it, and many of them do not even possess any sound knowledge of the basic principles of astrological science, are parading themselves as 'scientific astrologer', 'research guides' and denouncing everyone else as incompetent and even ignorant unfit to enter the portals of this occult Subject. I remember Karl Popper, the greatest Philosopher of modern times who revolutionized the concept regarding the validity of laws of Physical sciences, who impressed upon us while teaching research methodology at the London University that humility, apprehension of the magnitude of the enormous infinitude of the unknown, and the possibility of falsifiability (sic) of the arrived hypothesis are some of the essential ingredients of every serious enquiry...” Under the banner of research, perhaps we have in astrology the greatest of blunders and distortions as compared to any other field elsewhere. Among the various absurdities that we come across in astrology the so-called "Krishnamurthy Paddhati" undoubtedly ranks first with its most deceptive as well as distorted philosophy.
Faux pas-1: Krishnamurthy Paddhati 1. Genesis of the controversial thesis The first of my references where in I came across the names of R. Gopalakrishna Rao alias Meena and of Krishnamurthy was the serialized experiences of Dr. B. V. Raman almost a decade ago. In the years that followed I could not pay much attention to these authors due to my pre-occupation with the topics of ayan m a and the harmonics (Varga-s) of R i. During the early part of 1997 while looking for new avenues of research one of my colleagues providentially turned up with the necessary literature on the so-called ‘Krishnamurthy Paddhati’. The cumbersome divisions ' sub'and the ' sub-sub' , the numerous ‘significators’ or signifiers as well as the arbitrary value of ayan m a that gave him "unbelievable precision" in predictions made me suspicious about his high claims. Very soon my studies brought to the fore of my mind the reality – the technique itself was unscientific and therefore invalid. In the course of my study I also came across certain other references to Meena as the originator of the stellar sub-divisions in some old issues of the Astrological Magazine. The excerpts given below threw me into confusion as regards publication of my inferences