On Wunder’s supporting Dean’s cause

Author: Ertel, S., Professor
Abstract: Wunder takes issue with my study of rural-urban differences of popular belief whose results showed that Geoffrey Dean’s eight indicators of superstition are not valid. He doubts that country people from Gauquelin samples were more superstitious than townspeople. A review of past studies on rural-urban differences, however, provides abundant evidence that country people, even still of late decades, do tend to be more superstitious and more conservative in general than townspeople. Seeming counter evidence from studies of recent changes in urban and rural beliefs, provided by Wunder, makes sense only in particular contexts (such as revivals in urban settings of esoteric practices) which have no bearing on widely acknowledged differences between rural and urban belief systems. The critic thus fails to save Dean’s explanation of Gauquelin planetary effects, which is based on a theory of parental tampering.
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Notes:See Wunder, E.’s comment “On the rerlationship between urbanisation and the spread of popular belief systems: a comment on Professor Ertel’s paper in Correlation 19(2) pages 37 – 41
Publication: Correlation: Astrological Association Journal of Research in Astrology
Issue: Volume 20 Issue 1
Dated: 2001/2002
Pages: Pages 42 – 52