The Italian High Renaissance saw the high point of the use of astrology in the timing of both military and political events. It is known that Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, delayed the decisive battle in his war against Siena in 1554, against the advice of his commanders in the field. A previously unpublished astrological prognostic may have influenced his military strategy which, in fact, led to his eventual victory at Marciano on 2 August 1554. This paper presents a discussion of the circumstances surrounding the campaign, and a translation and analysis of the prognostic sent to Duke Cosimo in March 1554 by the astrologer Francesco Formiconi.

An attempt was made to find evidence for relations between traditional aspects and human birth. Gauquelin data on 20,528 eminent individuals representing 11 proofessions were subjected to time series analysis, segmenting a critical A-period of hypothetical influence (A = aspect condition) together with three preceding (P) and three succeeding (S) time periods of equal duration. The requencies of births within sequencs of 3P + 1A = 3S time segments were superimposed for each profession and for each of 15 aspects (conjunction, squares and oppositions between Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). Mean time series obtained for empirical aspect occurences were compared with mean time series for equivalent random segments as controls. No indication of an aspect influence was found.

This article first examines astrologers’ protestations at growing religious hostility in the 1490s and the involvement of Ficino, Pico and Savonarola in Florence. It then charts the reactions to Pico’s Disputationes both in the anti-astrological camp’s enthusiastic endorsement, and especially in the riposte of professional astrologers across Europe, whose piece-meal replies, intensified by the approaching conjunction of 1524, include a call for internal reform through a rejection of Arabic methods. Pico’s technical and empirical secondary arguments emerge as more effective than the physical and moral primary ones and reveal his singular understanding of practitioners’ mentality.

Many published definitions of the “Placidus” house system are either misleadingly incomplete or simply incorrect. This paper, which avoids astronomical or geometric jargon where possible, provides a clear yet comprehensive description of the system. Global application of the methods is then introduced.

The notions of symbolism, archetype and synchronicity in astrology are reviewed in a critical and rational way. It is demonstrated that they can in no way be defended scientifically but are purely literary and “fashionable” notions that undermine the reputation of astrology and fuel the arguments of its critics

The notions of symbolism, archetype and synchronicity in astrology are reviewed in a critical and rational way. It is demonstrated that they can in no way be defended scientifically but are purely literary and “fashionable” notions that undermine the reputation of astrology and fuel the arguments of its critics

The methodologies of social science, particularly those advanced by Eysenck and Nias in their review of critiques of astrological studies, are commended. Since there will be multiple factors influencing behavioural outcomes over the lifefspan, very large subject pools are necessary in order to estimate the contribution of various non-astrological factors. An aproach to human action derived from the work of Parsons is advocated, considering simultaneously cultural, social system, personality and cosmobiological (including astrological) influences. Despite numerous interacting forces influencing human action, it is choices that are determined, not the action itself. Ultimately, we are free agents and our actions are not “written in he stars”.

Birth counts of Gauquelin professionals across time of the day show large dips at midnight. Geoffrey Dean posits that parents avoid reporting that hour at registry offices because of fear of spooky effects (Fears). In Francoise Gauquelin’s view, however, parents merely avoid date ambiguity. In the present study, count of minute-by-minute frequencies of hospital births (1987-1994, N = 320,817) were analysed. Hypothesis: midnight avoidance, if due to Fears, should not occur in records of recent hospital births where parents are excluded from the reporting process. Result: the hospital data did show a considerable lack of births at 0:00 h sharp. For hospital births, only Avoidance makes sense while Dean’s Fears claim cannot apply here. Conclusion: it is inconceivable that Avoidance being traceable in recent hospital birth data, did not also guide 19th Century parents’ birth reports. Dean argued that Fears went along with adjusting their children’s birth hours to auspicious planetary positions so that Gauquelin planetary effects were deemed explainable, largely or even entirely, by occult beliefs. But since midnight avoidance is more plausibly explained by Avoidance rather than Fears, Dean’s seemingly strongest argument for bringing Gauquelin planetary effects down to earth is shattered.

This paper addresses a question that is concerned with the distribution of harmonic points around the circle, ecliptic or diurnal, which result when each degree is multipled by a certain number of harmonics. The method of how to do this is presented and discussed together with the merits of examining the resultant relationshipos when harmonics considered as pure numbers are manipulated.

See also Erratum for this article pp 62-63 Correltion 21(2) 2003

The medical astrologers of Ancient Greece: the iatromathematici, and the later European physician-astrologers, assumed a correlation between events in the heavens and those on earth that was relevant to both health and disease. Some of the early practitioners of modern scientific medicine did the same under the aegis of what we might term proto-cosmobiology, though none of them could provide an adequate mechanism to explain the nature of the link they believed existed between the skies and ourselves. With the discovery and elucidation of the pineal gland’s functions in the mid-twentieth century, which are discussed in detail, we were in a position to provide such a link, and to a great extent, we can now explain in conventional scientific terms how those influences of the Sun, Moon, planets and other celestial phenomena studied by the early iatromathematici and early cosmobiologists could, can, and do, affect us.