An exploratory investigation is reported in which physiognomic evidence for seasonal alternant-sign periodicity with predictable directionality was sought in the photographic portraits of Caucasoid and Negroid males. The portraits, which were taken from published biographical directories that also list birth dates, were examined for specific physiognomic traits that were postulated to be characteristic of either the odd-numbered sun signs (or solar months), traditionally associated with extraversion (E), or the even numberred sun signs, associated with introversion (I). The results are corroborative, but the method is not without its shortcomings: (1) the test instrument, which consists of several thousand small photographic portraits mounted on 3 x 5 inch cards, required much time and effort to prepare and cannot easily be reproduced for replication studies; (2) judges with sufficient talent and motivation to learn face reading are rare; (3) despite repeated efforts, a unitary physiognomic trait capable of dichotomizing the protratis was not found and it was only by weighing several traits in each face simultaneously that significant scores could be achieved; (4) the proprotion of photographic subjects with prototypic faces is small (less than 10% for each polarity); (5) a small but significant excess of smiling faces was found among the E sign portraits, so the possibility of cueing by astrologoically sophisticated photographic subjects cannot be excluded.

Precision of birth time recordings greatly increases between 1800 – 1950, while key sector percentages do not. This puzzling lack of a correlation is somewhat weakened by three additional observations possibly indicating an effect of record precision in different ways.

2297 volunteers completed personality questionnaires, measuring Psychoticism, Extraversion, Neuroticism, Impulsivity, Venturesomeness and Empathy. The most extreme scorers – top and bottom 12.3% – were subjected to a diurnal planetary sector analysis. Some samples showed a slight association with certain planets, associations that require replication.

The ‘Mars effect’ identified by Gauquelin is controversial, and has been challenged by various studies. The present study reanlyses French data (Benski et al ‘The Mars Effect’: A French Test of Over 1000 Sports Champions. Amherst NY: Prometheus) which, apparently, rejected the Mars hypothesis. The French data included 1,066 sports champions obtained from studying two biographical sources. Mathematical calculations by the Dutch statistician Nienhuys corrected for the effect of a wrong expectancy.
Ertel further investigates the possibility that some of the sports champions were not eminent enough to be included for study, since their names were listed in only one of the biographies of eminent sports people (this posssiblity was investigated by CFEPP for only 2 of 36 sports disciplines). Ertel identifies “supreme eminence” of some 300 sports champions, in that they were listed in both biographical sources. These men and women did indicate a statistically significant Mars effect (p = .02). Ertel then asked various researchers to check his data and calculations. Six scholars responded and all confirmed Ertel’s data counts. Four of these experts also confirmed Ertel’s statistical model and calculations.

After covering the relations bewteen neo-astrology and various branches of science, the author discusses the present and possible impact of astrology and astrological research on those disciplines which study science itself. Some of the current literature is considered and the paper concludes by reviewing the current state of the “Mars effect” controversy, and its implications.

Following the collapse of Communism in Russia in the early 1990s there has been a surge in religious interest and observance. However, because of many decades of atheistic indoctrination, knowledge of religion is poor and many people instead are turning to a variety of mystical and new age belief systems. There has been a considerable rise in interest in astrology, as ordinary people explore a variety of new age and metaphysical beliefs.

This study replicates work of Mayo, White & Eysenck (Journal of Social Psychology, 1978, 105, 229-236) and confirmed the astrological proposition that those born with the sun in a positive sign (Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquaries) are extraverted, and those with the sun in a negative sign (Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces) are inroverted. This result was indeed found, but only with subjects who had astrological interests, and consulted sun sign horoscopes regularly. The author suggests that there may be a self-attribution process, although a true astrological effect cannot be disproved with these data. It is concluded however that ‘selective self-attribution’ based on regular consultation of sun sign horoscopes is the most likely explanation.
The author does not comment on one interesting implication of this finding: that normative data on psychological constructs such as introversion-extraversion could reflect self-perception based on external cues (reading horoscopes), a variable not usually measured in personality research.

Studies linking phases of the full moon to violence have provided mixed findings, and the most recent studies have failed to show any connections. In this study inpatients admitted over 5 years to a psychiatric hospital in Northern Sydney were studied, and degree of violence was measured daily by a standardised schedule. No significant link was found beteen violence and aggression, and any phase of the moon, despite the fact that many health workers continue to believe that such a link exists.

Reviewing literature published in the past 50 years, the authors find no support for the traditional idea that moon phases are associated with psychiatric dusturbance. The authors propose that modern findings can be reconciled with traditional beliefs through the mechanism of sleep deprivation which was caused by brilliant noctural light during the full moon. Today’s populations are largely shielded from this lunar effect by modern housing and lighting conditions. But the partial sleep deprivation caused by the brilliance of the moon would, according to modern neuropsychiatric studies, have been sufficient to precipitate mania in people with this underlying disposition, and seizures in individuals with the vulnerability fo seizure disorder. The authors proposed experimental possibilities for the validation of their sleep deprivation hypothesis.

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 for both health and diseases.
Some of the early practitioners of modern scientific medicine did the same under the aegis of what we might term, proto-cosmobiology, though none would provide an adequate mechanism to explain the nature of the link they believed existed between the skies and ourselves.
Within the discovery and elucidation of the pineal gland’s functions in the mid twentieth century, which are discussed in detail, we can now to a greater extent explain in conventional scientific terms how those influences of the sun, moon and planets and other celestial phenomenon studied by the early iatromathematici and early cosmobiologists can, and do, affect us.