The claim based on a study by James David on Alice Bailey’s theory of “Seven Rays” that, using this theory, photographs of people could be accurately matched to their sun sign is tested in this paper.200 photographs were sent to James David of which he chose 58. After subjecting the choices made by James David to analysis the author concluded that they were no better than chance. James David’s response arguing that the author’s method of analysis could be disputed is included in the paper with a discussion of the grounds for that dispute.

Dr. Theodor Lanscheidt claims to have discovered effects by Mercury, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto and the Sun on birth distributions of Gauquelin professionals. His result, however, a smoothed cyclic curve, was replicable by random numbers. Landscheidt also holds that Gauquelin planetary effects obtain their pattern by the “golden Section”, i.e. peaks and troughs of birth distributions are allegedly governed by the proportions .382 and .618. It was shown that many other proportions, e.g., .202 fit better than the “golden” proportion but even the best-fitting “non-golden” proportions lack explanatory import.

Dr.Landscheidt rejects Professor Ertel’s dismissal of the golden section link with the Gauquelin “professionals” effect and discusses his reason for so doing.

The aim of this study is to compare sociability scores with the birth time in calendar and seasonal months of a population of 524 students (Ss) of an average age of 22.09 years, by using the Eysenck and Wilson psychological test. The position of the Sun in eleven out of the twelve zodiacal signs corresponds significantly to alternations of higher and lower sociability for the odd and even signs of the zodiac respectively, this being in conformity with astrological tradition. On the other hand, a significant sinusoidal evolution (COSINOR) in sociability scores appears with a maximum in Libra which can explain the very low score of Aries because of the position of the minimum of the curve at the level of the sign (p<0.05). These results seem to validate the astrological zodiacal signs.

Most statistical studies done to investigate astrological claims either measure an astrologer’s capabilities (matching tests etc.) or oversimplify human subjects as belonging to a certain category (sportsman, extrovert …) or not. A way to avoid this might be to measure something like “instinctive” attraction or repulsion to someone unknown. The author tested this (in 1992) by judging 369 people on the street on a scale from “bah” to “wow!” (attraction -3 to +3). The assumption that people who had their natal Moon, Venus or Mars position in a major aspect with the same object in the author’s radix, would get a higher attraction score, appears to be confirmed with a significance in the order of 5%. The more (of these 3) aspects present between “judge” and test person the higher the average attraction. Also, the smaller the aspect orb, the higher the average attraction. Remarkable was that sextile aspects seem to have no effect.

Geoffrey Dean claims that parents of Gauquelin professionals, guided by superstition, tampered with birth dates and birth times of their children when they gave their obligatory reports at registration offices (Dean, 2000). In his view, therefore, Gauquelin planetary effects might be “man made” to a large extent, or even entirely, due to the parents’ efforts to enhance their children’s fortunes and to banish possible misfortune . Dean used four “avoidance” variables (unlucky day avoidance, new Moon avoidance etc) and four “preference” variables (lucky day preference, full Moon preference etc.) as superstition indicators. I tested the validity of these variables by dividing the French Gauquelin professionals N= 7,952) into seven sub-samples of equal size sorted by birth place population. Dean’s avoidance and preference indicators should be more pronounced in rural (small population) compared with urban samples (large population) because popular beliefs flourish in rural life while fading away with urbanization. The indicators did not show the expected decline across samples from urban to rural birth places. This result casts considerable doubt on Dean’s alleged superstition variables upon which his enterprise is grounded.

The story of phrenology is rich in lessons for astrology. But the literature of phrenology is so huge, so clogged with side issues (of philosophy, of politics, of religion, of morality, of society in general), so often tedious to read (wordiness being the style of the day), and so difficult to find except in specialised libraries, that these lessons have gone largely unrecognised. Like astrology, phrenology encourages you to assess yourself and act on its findings to achieve harmony with the world. Like astrology, it flourished because practitioners and clients saw that it worked. It was claimed to be “so plainly demonstrated that the non-acceptance of phrenology is next to impossible.” But the experience-based claims of phrenologists are now known to be completely wrong. Could the same apply to the experience-based claims of astrologers? To answer this phrenology’s social context, history, literature, testimonials, stock objections, and experimental tests, all of which have parallels in astrology, are looked at ending with phrenologists’ views of astrology and vice versa. The conclusion is drawn that, until astrologers can demonstrate otherwise, the answer would seem to be yes.

An experiment was designed to try to find out whether women’s relationships are affected by what they read in their horoscopes. Forty-six female undergraduates were randomly assigned to two groups. One group was given a horoscope that contained positive love advice; the other neutral love advice. All participants completed an Astrology Awareness Questionnaire. Questionnaires concerning the women’s relationships were completed both before and after they received the horoscopes, with about six weeks between the two. Scores on the relationships questionnaires did not change after the neutral advice, and were slightly (though not significantly) higher after the positive love advice. Levels of knowledge of and belief in astrology were high, but very few subjects said they would change their behaviour according to what they read in their horoscope.

In Volume 16 Issue 1 the author published an article about the 1933 test of Dutch master astrologer Leo Knegt that was conducted by the Dutch lawyer Cornelis Petrus van Rossum. In this article, astrologers are asked to participate in two follow-up tests. Test 1 was about finding and describing significators. Test 2 was a standard matching test. In test 1 only two readers participated. They did not agree on the singificators that Knegt might have sued. This fact as well as the very low degree of participation made this test a failure. In test 2, i.e., trying to match Knegt’s descriptions with five of the ten horoscopes Knegt had to deal with, 21 astrologers from all over the world took apart. The results: if all astrologers had scored correctly, there would have been 105 hits but there were only 29hits against 21 expected by chance alone. On an individual level, only two astrologers managed to get three right out of five horoscopes. The majority only one out of five. Experienced astrologers did not score better than beginners. This is very disappointing given the fact that in the original test Leo Knegt had scored ten out of ten.

The notion that the Age of Aquarius is either beginning or is imminent is frequently found in astrological literature. However, there is no agreement either on when it begins or how its inauguration is to be calculated. By the normally accepted definition the Age begins when the First Point of Aries in the tropical zodiac precesses either into the equal thirty degree division of the sidereal sign of Aquarius or into the unequal sidereal constellation of Aquarius. The moment this occurs will depend on exactly where the boundary of this sign or constellation is fixed. Opinion varies considerably .from school to school and astrologer to astrologer, as witnessed by the wide variations in Ayanamshas (the difference between O degrees Aries in the tropical and sidereal zodiacs) in use in India and elsewhere. In addition, western astrologers increasingly point to planetary movements in the tropical zodiac to define the beginning of the Age.