Читать книгу Astrology: The only introduction you’ll ever need - Charles Harvey - Страница 15

No history of 20th-century astrology would be complete without mention of the remarkable work of the French psychologist and statistician Dr Michel Gauquelin (1928–91) and his demographer wife Frangoise (1929– ). Between them they gathered many tens of thousands of birth certificates of famous individuals from all over Europe. Birth certificates on the continent include the time of birth. Using this information, the Gauquelins were able to demonstrate statistically that eminent professionals tended to be born when particular planets were:

 close to the eastern or western horizon or

 close to the upper meridian, their highest point in the sky or

 close to the lower meridian, the lowest point.

For example, future champion athletes, eminent military men and entrepreneurs tend to be born when Mars, god of the warrior, is so placed. By contrast, the Gauquelins found that future eminent scientists tend to be born when Saturn, bestower of the saturnine cautious, methodical, intellectual temperament, is prominent. Future actors and politicians tend to be born when self-important, jovial Jupiter is in these positions. Future politicians are also found to be born with an angular Moon, as are future writers and journalists.

Despite attempts by several committees of sceptics to disprove these results, often using dubious methods, the observations have replicated again and again with fresh samples of data. An impartial survey of all the evidence by Suitbert Ertel, Professor of Psychology at Göttingen University in Germany, has concluded in The Tenacious Mars Effect that it is time that sceptics embraced the reality of these results and accepted the challenge they present to the prevailing world-view. Hans Eysenck, (1916–97), Professor of Psychology at London University and a strict experimentalist, came to the same conclusion.