Sir Isaac Newton seems to have been the first person to have applied the precession of the equinoxes to history. His concern was not so much the dating of the astrological ages, but rather to use the location of the vernal point in the sidereal zodiac as a chronological indicator to historical events.

In this study I tested the astrological claim that synastry aspects between two natal charts play a role in human relationships. The sample used contained the birth data of 5648 parents who were non-celebrities born in France around the turn of the century. These birth data had originally been collected and published by M & F Gauquelin. To test this synastry claim I counted and analysed the mutual major aspects between partners (angular separation along the ecliptic) of 0, 60, 90 120 and 180 degrees (orb 5 degrees) of nine natal horoscope factors (Sun, Moon, Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Asc. And MC). I derived the theoretically expected aspect frequencies from the sample by comining all male subjects with all female subjects, each gender belonging to specific age groups. To test the significance of the deviation between observed and expected aspect frequencies, I used the synasstry aspects in 500 samples of each 2824 randomly composed couples, and fitted probability-density functions to the frequency histograms of these data. The frequency of the grand total of aspects appeared to be significantly large. A genuinely significant high aspect frequency to the Sun in the charts of the wives took a heavy share in the surplus of the grand total. Hwever, the number of significant aspects as well as the magnitude of the overall deviation from chance level were not genuinely significant. Nevertheless, a significant majority of factor pairing showed a surplus of aspect frequency. In addtion, several combinations of aspects as well as their frequency orb dependencies did not falfify astrological doctrines on synastry. But since th effect sizes were very small the conclusion was that synastry aspects may play only a trivial role in partner selection.

I conducted a refinement of the synastry control experiment (1) in which the birth dates of married partners were shifted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 days The surplus of aspect frequency gradually decreased with increasing shift magnitude. The maximum frequency appears at the zero shift. These findings reinforce the conclusion that the previously reported synastry effect is not due to methodological errors.

According to Dean’s parental tampering hypothesis (PTH) Gauquelin planetary effects of AD 1800 – 1950 are due mainly or entirely to the reporting of wrong birth hours by superstitious parents. Parental superstition is also deemed manifest in various other ways of tampering with birth dates and birth times such as midnight avoidance, or full Moon, lucky number, Christian feast adjustment etc. It is well-known that due to increased population, education, and urbanization, superstition declined in European countries from AD1800 to 1950. I calculated Dean’s eight purported indicators of superstition individually for successive birth cohorts of Gauquelin professionals. If Dean’s hypothesis holds, his indicators of superstition should decline accordingly. An analysis of successive birth cohorts, however, showed that Dean’s purported superstition variables did not decline. Hence they do not indicate superstition. Dean’s parental tampering hypothesis, devoid of validity of its key variables, cannot possibly be right.

(1) Is the scientific approach relevant to astrology? Yes, but only to those parts testable by observation. No distinction between Material and Formal cuases is necessary. Thus to test whether a person fits his chart better than a control requires no causal assumpitons whatever. (2) Why are scientists and astrologers in conflict over whether astrology works? Mainly because they tend to look at different things. Scientists are mostly concerned with accuracy (controlled tests) whereas astrologers are mostly conerned with satisfaction (client acceptance). But accuracy is unrelated to satisfaction. So their views can conflict yet both can be right. In particular cases a more important reason on either side may be dishonesty, ignorance and arrogance.

The hypothesis that ordinary (I.e., unexceptional) people should show a planetary effect in personality similar to that shown by famous people was tested by three studies involving, respectively, vocational interest (300 subjects), planetary psychology self-reports (846 subjects), and scorers on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (561 subjects). Only the last showed (marginally) significant results: Mars correlated in the expected direction with E+ and P+, and the Moon with L+. Results for the other planets, and for N+, were either inconsistent or not significant. The deficiencies of some existing personality questionaires are discussed and alternate approaches are suggested. The best approach seems to be the same as for famous people, namely the generation of biographical data followed by the character-traits method

Opposite extremes of the E and N dimensions of the EPI differ in personality as basically as it is possible to differ. To test the hypothesis that such extremes should differ in their planetary positioins at birth, subjects with the most extreme scores on the EPI (108 for each of E+, E-, N+, N-) were selected from a sample of 1145 subjects mostly from the southern hemisphere. The frequencies of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Moon and Venus in the Gauquelin “plus zones” was determined for E+ vs E- and N+ vs N-. Half of the results were in the expected direction but no result wwas significant either individually or in combination.

After outlining briefly a control study for the analysis presented in Part 1, this article discusses four theories fo the posssible origins of the planetary types. The first three theories are often upheld by astrologers, by their critics, or by both, but all of them, it is argued, are unsatisfactory as they stand. The fourth theory, which is new in some respects, is based partly on widely accepted historical data and partly upon speculations derived from scientific methodology. It is claimed that this theory makes it possible to construe the astrological enterprise, from its beginnings to the present, as far more rational than is usually supposed by astrologers and their critics alike.

John Nelson has claimed that heliocentric planetary aspects are an important factor in predicting short-wave radio disturbance. But a correlation analysis of his predictions and observed radio quality showed that the claim was not substantiated. In assessing his own predictions, Nelson used a method of anlaysis that gave an accuracy of around 90%. This is shown to be an artifact arising from the high proportion of undisturbed days. A valid system of predicting must do better than both chance and baseline conditions, but on the basis of conventional statistical tests Nelson’s planetary system does not.

Modern scientific research and astrology are different kinds of activity. Astrology is derived from given Principles, research from theory and empirical data. The author argues that the two activities come from different world-views and one cannot validly be regarded in the light of the other. Questions about the direction of astrological research are posed.