J. F. Ruis compared birth frequencies between males and females of ordinary people (Gauquelin data) across planetary sectors and claimed that certain frequencies differed significantly. Since the dates of birth in his male and female sub samples had not been matched, the result might be due to an astronomical-demographical artefact. The present study tries to replicate Ruis’ result using the same data with male and female sub samples matched for date of birth (n+ 7,593) each. Each sub sample was divided using the median birth day as the dividing point, into two successive cohorts. For each cohort the male proportion of births, indicating the gender difference, was determined across 36 sectors of 5 planets. If gender differences exist they should be stable across successive cohorts, but gender differences in the first cohort did not reoccur in the subsequent cohort. This was revealed by correlations. The observed lack of stable differences cannot be attributed to the method since the same method successfully demonstrated stability in identifying Mars-prone professionals and ordinary people. The finding of Ruis is thus most probably due to an astronomical-demographical artefact.

The Gauquelin distributions for professionals are examined and the chance of finding such close clustering of the phase angles for the 3rd and 4th harmonics is shown to be very small. An experiment of simulating “noise” addition to the data (to resemble the tampering noted by Dean) is described and it is shown that the phase angles are robust against noise. A speculation by Addey that the 3rd and 4th harmonics represent subsets of one population is examined, and it is shown that the ratios of the amplitudes of the 3rd and 4th harmonics for each of the professional groups varies widely (as would follow if Addy’s speculation is true).

The predictive qualities of Vedic astrology were tested using 20 pairs of birth data. One of each pair was a real person who had died in a road accident. The other was a fictitious person who acted as a control. In each pair the birth place was the same, and the birth dates were no more than three months apart, as were the death dates. Using Vedic astrology a form of astrology widely applied in India, the author (working blind) attempted to identify the genuine accidental death. The result was 11 hits and 9 misses, which is not significantly different fro the 10 expected by chance.

Birth data for 20 politicians and 20 painters, in randomised order, were given to eleven experienced astrologers, who had to judge which was which. The test was performed using internet communication. Participants of the tests, individually, did not perform better than chance nor did they succeed as a group. Moreover, mean agreement was poor. The result is consistent with previous studies. Possible reasons for the failure are discussed.

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, or 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 unrecgonised. 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 question, the author looks at phrenology’s social context, history, literature, testimonials, stock objections, and experimental tests, all of which have parallels in astrology, ending with phrenologists’ views of astrology and vice versa. The author concludes that the answer appears to be yes.

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.