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.

A literature review is presented which gives a brief overview of the use of astrology in medicine and psychology. Report of a study carried out at an NHS UK Hospital involving the use of astrological counselling with chronic pain patients (n = 6 patients) is also given and includes the presentation of two case studies. Astrological profiles of the patients and the history of their chronic pain were presented to the clinical psychologist in charge of the programme, who then compared them with the psychological profiles. The psychologist concluded that astrological information was provided which enhanced understanding obtained by traditional psychological methods and that the analyses, themselves, were comparable with the results of psychological analyses.

The Raëlian Church is an atheistic religion with a cosmology that is compatible with modern science. Its founder-leader Claude Vorilhon (Raël), whose birth in 1946 is said to herald the new Age of Aquarius, offers a detailed interpretation of Judaeo-Christian scripture that claims a history of encounters a new highly evolved technological society, with the possibility of immortality for those who are worthy. Jung’s theory that flying saucers are a modern myth is used to demonstrate how Raëlianism finds it possible to synthesize UFOlogy and religion.

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.

This article discusses trait-word extraction methodology as used in extensive analyses of US-Presidential biographies. It is made clear that there is an objectively verifiable methodoly for trait extraction which suggests that Ertel’s claims that the flawed methodology used by the Gauquelins invalidates the whole Character Traits Hypothesis (CTH) are not justified. The study continues by using the analyses of Simonton for each president, which includes a score on 4 scales (Interpersonal, Charismatic, Deliberative and Creative) to examine the correlations with Plus-Zone planets. Significant correlations are found on a small sample because the methodology of Ordinal data can be applied, in contrast to the Chi-Squared and other testing which is all that can be done on the Nominal data found in the Gauquelin source. The implication of this so-far neglected study (since 1997) is that CTH must be re-examined, and that the work of Simonton who has studied eminence over many years needs to be considered before ill-informed decisions are made to reject CTH. In addition the use of a methodology such as this would allow the study of small samples of the Gauquelin database with a view to re-examining CTH.