The author argues for an alternative model of how astrology works. He proposes that only a few percent of people are “enhancers” or “starborn” and for those people astrological indicators work well. This theory accords closely with the Gauqulelin findings and also with his own work on time-twins. Finally, he presents evidence from questionnaire research that the starborn (as a small proportion) can be found among “ordinary people” by discerning planetary traits from their answers to carefully selected questions. It is suggested that the significance of this work would be much enhanced by independent replication.

The present state of research on the Gauquelin data is re-considered in the light of more recent Darwinian theory and the ecology of family systems. New testable predictions are derived which are not subject to allegations of possible fraud by the Gauquelins. Important features are explained including curvilinear eminence and gender effects, and it is suggested that CTH (Character Trait Hypothesis) and inheritance effect need to be reconsidered if the predictions can be verified. A small study is presented which supports the theory, and further testing is invited.

The French skeptics (CFEPP) attempt to replicate the Gauquelin Mars effect used a sample of 1,966 sports champions taken from two biographical sources. They reported an insignificant surplus of births in Mars key sectors upon which they concluded that a Mars effect was non-existent. The surplus became larger but remained insignificant when the CFEPP’s own critic, Dr, Nienhuys, mathematician at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, at my suggestion corrected the CFEPP’s wrong expectancy. However, Nienhuys missed an opportunity to correct another flaw, namely the CFEPP’s inclusion of cases that were not eminent enough to meet the requirements of “supreme eminence”. A Mars effect becomes manifest only with eminent professionals. On the one hand, the CFEPP rightly argued that champions listed in both biographical sources were more eminent on average than those listed in only one course. But they did not use this criterion for all 36 sports disciplines except for two that lacked appropriate records of successes. When all double sources (= more eminent) champions out of the CFEPP’s total were picked, a significant Mars effect (p = .02) resulted. In addition, the Mars effect for double-source champions was significantly (p = .04) larger than that of single-source champions, whose proportion of births with Mars in key sections did not deviate significantly from chance. In order to remove doubts of critics, a number of competent and independent researchers were invited to scrutinise the counts of the CFEPP’s published data as well as to analyse them using their own procedures. Six of them replied and all confirmed the counts. Four confirmed the significance of the Mars key sector deviations. Three confirmed the conclusions without reservation and one with some reservation. Two considered the CFEPP data and methodology as inappropriate which view is shown to be untenable.

This discourse looks in detail at the judgment processes used by astrologers and their clients and concludes that by a few simple strategies, astrologers’ judgment abilities can be improved. Questions addressed are: How does belief in astrology arise? What judgment processes underlie chart interpretation? What judgment processes underlie the assessment of chart interpretation? The system of astrological correspondences that generations of astrologers have seen as completely valid could be completely false, in the same that the system of phrenological correspondences now known to be completely false was seen by generations of phrenologists as completely valid. The author concludes that, in short, there are many non-astrological reasons why astrology should be seen as valid, none of which require that astrology be true (this of course is not a problem peculiar to astrology.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.