The Mercury Retrograde phenomenon has spread like wildfire in recent years, passed on from the enlightened to the uninitiated every time this astral conjunction makes its presence felt. Not too long ago, it went mainstream, suddenly co-opted into the celebrity world.

Since then, it’s become a media staple, feted and analysed by the likes of Vogue and the New York Times, with the former happily enlightening its readers as to “What to shop for During Mercury’s Retrograde”. Even the relatively sane Travel & Leisure magazine got in on the act, grimly advising its 4.8 million readers on “How to Avoid Travel Nightmares While Mercury Is in Retrograde.”

Mercury Retrograde’s reputation as a cosmic prankster, a kind of eccentric stellar interventionist adept at pulling the rug on unwary mortals some 48 million miles away, has clearly been well-established. That does, however, leave one question – What Exactly Is It?

Well, thousands of years ago, the astrologers of classic times, spotted a star (actually the planet Mercury) moving backwards across the firmament. This is somewhat unusual and even contrary to the expectations of NASA, with its website blithely informing the cosmically-curious: “Normally, the planets move west-to-east (prograde) through the stars at night.”

With apparently little respect for NASA’s view as to how a well-brought-up universe really ought to behave, three to four times a year, Mercury does, indeed, appear to turn tail. This sees it conspicuously travelling on a retrograde east-to-west path, as if doing a spot of galactic reversing.

Disappointingly, this is actually an optical illusion, a consequence of the fact that Earth’s orbital progress is somewhat faster than its far-distant neighbour.

Such anodyne astrophysics, however, have done little to deter astrologically-minded opportunists. Leavened with a mishmash of mythology – both Greek and Roman to be on the safe side – Mercury Retrograde has been successfully repackaged as an anthropologically-significant occurrence.

One premium rate astrologer who has clearly managed to weather the more malignant aspects of the Mercury Retrograde phenomenon is Larry Schwimmer, a US-based life coach and the founder of Astrodecision.com.

Whenever Mercury Retrograde occurrs, Schwimmer maintains that all forms of all communication are compromised, saying: “Mercury, after all, does rule the mind, mental clarity, speech, self-expression and overall communication.”

Perhaps surprisingly, given that it is such an exact science, not every astrologer agrees. Dismissing Schwimmer’s baneful prognostications, Annabel Gat, astrologer-in-chief for the Vice online media group, says: “Do what you got to do when you have to do it. Mercury be damned.”

Perhaps even less surprisingly, many working in the more demonstrable sciences are even more dismissive, with Michael Shera, curator of the American Natural History Museum’s Astrophysics Department, speaking for many when he says: “There is absolutely no evidence or scientific justification as to how Mercury – or any other planet – could have any impact whatsoever on life on Earth. In fact, astrology has no more of a scientific basis than alchemy or a belief in unicorns.”

Mercury next goes retrograde on the 22^nd of this month, staying that way until 15 April. If, during that period, you find yourself stuck at an airport, with a fritzed iPhone, peering at the smouldering remains of the Himawari 9 weather satellite, the day after starting a new job, and your ex suddenly turns up, then you might want to give matters astrological greater approbation in the future.

In all likelihood, however, the worst thing that will happen to you during the Mercury Retrograde period is that one of your more otherworldly nodding acquaintances will initiate a chat about the malignant planetary alignment that misappropriated his Octopus Card or some such astrally-decreed disaster on the domestic front. Some predictions, alas, are way more likely to come to pass than others.

The full version of this feature appears on Gafencu Magazine’s March 2018 print issue as “Dready Mercury” by Julienne C. Raboca. You can download the free app for digital editions of the magazine.