The majority of those who read their ‘star signs’ can identify aspects of their personality in what they read and it is possible that this may influence their attitudes and actions. The research literature has neglected astrological signs as possible predictors of suicidal behaviour and ideas. To see whether astrological birth signs are associated with suicide and method used, data were collected from the Public Healh Department in North Cheshire on Coroner’s verdicts of suicide and open verdicts in all deceased aged 60 and above between 1989 and 2000. The timing of suicide deaths was compared with those occurring from natural causes. Most of the comparisons were not statistically significant, except for suicide by hanging, which was significantly elevated in those with a birth sign in Virgo, and lowest in those born in Saggittarius and Scorpio. In addition suicide by violent methods showed a significant excess in thos born in summer months.

An attempt to replicate Ruis’ recent results on a further 20,000 couiples suggested that the results do not generally replicate. However, there was an excess of synastry aspects to the wives’ Suns in 5,000 non-eminent couples.

Kelly’s and Saklofske’ crilticism of Smithers’ 1981 study are examined and it is suggeseted that they have not fully appreciated the argument presented: that astrology may be an unwitting source of self knowledge. Since people vary in their knoweldge of astrology and of themselves, it is not surpprising that the apparent sun sign correlations should not emerge in all studies. Further data are presented to show that it is extremely unlikely that the patterns described in Smithers’ study were produced by some weakness or artefact in the measuring technique. lt is important to establish whether the apparent astrological effects on self image are transient or nt. This is currently being investigated.

Previous attempts to quantify the agreement between astrologers’ keywords for the planets and the Gauquelins’ independently derived lists of planetary traits have been marred by the use of less than ideal data. A fresh analysis, with new data and a different method, is presented here. The results show quite high, non-random agreement, especially for Mars, Saturn and Moon though arguments are also presented for regarding the measurements as only rough estimates. Improvement in astrologers’ accuracy over time was anticipated but the evidence supporting it was slight.

The author’s previous research with M. and F. Gauquelin data confirmed the existence of planetary effects for eminent professionals. However, the present research casts doubt on Gauquelin’s physical explanation. (1) For sports champions the planetary effect was unrelated to astronomical variables (distance of Mars from Earth, its angular size, apparent magnitude, declination, right ascension, solar elongation, and radius vector). Further, the effect did not diminish during Mars-Sun conjunctions. (2) For ordinary people, Gauquelin’s claim that geomagnetic activity enhanced the planetary correspondence between children and parents was not supported. Nor did the planetary effect for eminent professionals covary with geomagnetic activity. lt seems that Gauquelin’s positive results with geomagnetism are due to random oscillations. (3) Gauquelin’s claim that planetary effects decrease after 1950 – a presumed side-effect of applying obstetric drugs – could not be veried with professionals’ data. However, the number of post-1950 births was insufficent for a definite conclusion. (4) The accuracy of birth times on official documents increased markedly through decades 1830 – 1950 but produced no corrresponding increase in planetary birth frequencies. In the light of these results, Gauquelin’s midwife hypothesis, seems to be untenable, in which case an interpretation of planetary effects in terms of physics and physiology must be replaced by something else.

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.

This follow-up to “The Moon’s nodes in Synastry” investigates a further 18.000 emlnent couples. lnitially, the results were statistically significant, until the addition of a large number of royal couples. The results show marked similarity to those of the original study, and it is now clear that any result is most dramatic with conjunctions to the partner’s moon.

In Correlation 1, 1, I was accused by Michael Startup of having under-estimated the results of several astrologers’ description of the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn’s psychological meaning. He contests one expected value of 50% and estimates it at 20%. The statistical reasons for my estimation of the expected value are described here, together with the diffiuclties of working statistically with psychological trait words, which explains the somewhat complicated method used to measure the accuracy of astrologers’ keyqords adopted in the second test in my booklet.