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Evidence Proving The Validity Of Astrology

... Why would they bother, when they are aware that "their critics' own cherished methods" are misapplied to this category of phenomena, and shall find nothing "real" there with the tools they habitually deploy? ...

Survey / statistical methods wouldn't be misapplied at all in building a case that astrological predictions or other results prove themselves to be accurate beyond a threshold of random coincidence.

There's no reason at all to rule out the use of "scientific" methods to support the proposition that "there's something to astrology."

The criticality of "scientific" restrictions comes to the fore only when seeking to explain how stellar influences may operate.

There's a big difference between establishing the reliability of a purported phenomenon and establishing a demonstrable understanding of its inner workings.
 
There exists a wealth of material on the workings of astrology in practice -- written by both astrologers themselves as well as by interested onlookers -- available to those sincerely interested in the subject. None of this, needless to say, will satisfy those looking for proof of the validity of astrology. (Had they really been interested in understanding what astrology was all about, they would doubtless have already investigated the subject via the written records of practitioners of the craft, and known better than to even raise the subject of the validity or otherwise of someone's star sign or of a prediction made in a newspaper/magazine column.)

It should be obvious (I hope!) that I have no interest in convincing anyone of the validity of astrology, nor do any astrologers with whom I have been acquainted. There is so much to learn, experience, enjoy, and imbibe in all areas that who has the (unpaid as well as otherwise unrewarded) time to waste on that? Not me, that's for sure!
 
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More from Jeff Kripal (and once again pertinent here, I believe):

The more humble or respectable way to describe both the events Fort
collected and his desire to collect them is to say that Charles Fort was a collector
of coincidences. These were coincidences, however, that he felt—he
could not quite say why—signaled some larger, and perhaps literally cosmic,
truth
. He was on the intuitive trail of, well, something. Here is how he
put the matter:

Sometimes I am a collector of data, and only a collector, and am likely to be
gross and miserly, piling up notes, pleased with merely numerically adding to
my store. Other times I have joys, when unexpectedly coming upon an outrageous
story that may not be altogether a lie, or upon a macabre little thing that
may make some reviewer of my more or less good works mad. But always there

is present a feeling of unexplained relations of events that I note; and it is this
far-away, haunting, or often taunting, awareness, or suspicion, that keeps me

piling on. (WT 861–62)

To begin with, in 1901 Fort had already
completed a draft of a youthful autobiography entitled Many Parts, only a
portion of which has survived. The title is from Shakespeare’s famous lines
in As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely
players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time
plays many parts.” As with Shakespeare’s collapsing of the stage into life
and life into the stage (or my earlier discussion of the personality as a persona,
as a “mask”), Fort denied in principle any stable distinction between
fiction and reality
. He hated, for example, how books were divided up as
“fiction” or “nonfiction” in the libraries (WT 863).

I cannot say that truth is stranger than fiction, because I have never had acquaintance with either.”
There is only “the hyphenated state of truth-fiction
” (WT 864).

Nor, as we have already noted, did Fort believe in any stable distinction
between the imagined and the physical
(WT 1010). As with Myers’s
notion of the imaginal, the imagination, properly understood in its true
scope, is nearly omnipotent in Fort’s worldview
. Indeed, it is so powerful
(and potentially perverse) that Fort suggested in more than one context
that we are all living in someone else’s novel, which was not a particularly
good one. “Some of us,” he observed, “seem almost alive—like characters
in something a novelist is writing” (BD 79). There thus can be no final conclusions
or firm beliefs or even arguments “in the fiction that we’re living,”
only what he calls “pseudo-conclusions” and “expressions”
(WT 1009).
The world, after all, may be imagined and written anew tomorrow in some
other way, on some other page.

To me the astrological phenomenon is entirely consistent with the bolded parts above. It has more the quality of dream, myth, and story interacting with an apparently objective world than something that can be pinned down and proven conclusively to be true or false, valid or invalid. Does anyone here take issue with Charlie on the points bolded above (and would they be so bold as to assert their greater forteanity for taking issue with him on these points?)
 
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Care to provide a brief list of some of the other tools? :)

* reading and assimilating the canon of whatever it is, as a whole

* finding the internal logic of the canon

* relating the phenomenon to one's lived experience, accepting analogy as well as homology

* reading the rebuttals of the believers to "science" and "common sense" dismissal, again looking for coherence and internal logic

That's off the top of my head :D never had t write it down before, thank you @Indrid Drood
 
... To me the astrological phenomenon is entirely consistent with the bolded parts above. It has more the quality of dream, myth, and story interacting with an apparently objective world than something that can be pinned down and proven conclusively to be true or false, valid or invalid. Does anyone here take issue with Charlie on the points bolded above (and would they be so bold as to assert their greater forteanity for taking issue with him on these points?)

It's difficult to correlate these general points with the specific case of astrology (and Fort's own attitude toward astrology) because Fort never addressed astrology head-on as a topic. Astrology is mentioned only rarely in his primary "fortean" books, and then almost always with respect to "astrologers" rather than "astrology."
 
So we agree that there is a class of phenomena beyond science's scope, which it would be not only foolish but utterly fruitless to attempt to study and understand with the tools of science (like astrology, perhaps?).

.

To suggest that any field is closed simply because we cannot, at the moment, use hte tools of science to examine it is rather short sighted.

The only thing the alignment of the Planets offers is a miniscule change in the gravity effecting the Earth; and of necessity, all of us.
So it may be the place to look.

But it should not be forgotten that the 'readers of the stars (and planets)' were, back in the day, regarded with reverence. A nice little earner if you could get on it.

A bit like religion; the basis of which is also unprovable .

I suspect that the above may explaine it more than anything else.
 
* reading and assimilating the canon of whatever it is, as a whole

* finding the internal logic of the canon

* relating the phenomenon to one's lived experience, accepting analogy as well as homology

* reading the rebuttals of the believers to "science" and "common sense" dismissal, again looking for coherence and internal logic

That's off the top of my head :D never had t write it down before, thank you @Indrid Drood
Thank you, that's more like it! :)

If a person were sufficiently intrigued by the phenomenon to have the motivation to explore it in greater depth than is expressed in the words, "Oh, that's interesting; I wonder what it's all about!" (in my experience this generally only comes about through having personal contact with someone who makes some very precise statements about events in one's life via the birthchart, leading one to wonder, "How the hell could s/he know that!"), and they had a scholarly approach, they would of course first perform an exhaustive search of the literature, and discover that all the kinds of studies proposed in this thread have already been done. To ask for evidence of the validity of astrology in a forum such as this, however, while remaining ignorant of (and seemingly disinterested in) all that prior research and discussion, shows a lack of seriousness that cannot be productive of anything except confirming one in the correctness of one's belief (in the invalidity of astrology).

Of course, given the difficulty in tracking down a lot of these research materials (many only in specialist journals that are, obviously, not held in academic library collections), one would have to be highly motivated – and probably on the spectrum like you and I – to even come to learn of their existence. I would even argue that unless you are such an atypical case, ready to go to the ends of the earth to get to the bottom of it, and willing to suffer mockery, ridicule, and ostracisation in that single-minded pursuit, then it is much better indeed to just write it off as a load of rubbish (while perhaps maintaining in online forums that one is "open to looking at the evidence" and then taking it from there...).

My point in participating in this thread was not to advance arguments in favour of astrology, but simply to point out that the obvious historically-unaware, "hard science" approach would yield nothing of value (apart from supporting the prejudicial beliefs of those already convinced that it's all a load of rubbish).

For the record, my own association with astrology has been almost entirely historical for over a decade, and I have no urge to convince anyone of its "truth-fiction" (unlike some devout materialists, here and everywhere, who – plainly or otherwise – are all too eager to point out at every opportunity that hard science = unhyphenated truth, and things like astrology = unhyphenated fiction).
 
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Wondered if this might be of related interest:

An Astronomer Explains Why Your 'Star Sign' Is Probably Wrong


Source: James Kaler, The Conversation / sciencealert.com
Date: 25 January, 2020

I was born a Capricorn (please don't judge me), but the Sun was in the middle of Sagittarius when I was born.

As a professor emeritus of astronomy, I am often asked about the difference between astrology and astronomy. The practice of astrology, which predicts one's fate and fortune based on the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets, dates back to ancient times.

It was intermingled with the science of astronomy back then – in fact, many astronomers of old made scientific observations that are valuable even today.

But once Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo realized the planets orbit the Sun, rather than the Earth, and Newton discovered the physical laws behind their behavior, astrology and astronomy split, never to be reunited.

The science of astronomy is now at odds with one of the basic organizing principles in astrology – the dates of the zodiac.

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-astronomer-explains-why-your-star-sign-is-probably-wrong/amp
 
Now here is some 'scientific evidence' that when you were born is relevant to who you are - Though not exactly the same as astrology, if it is true, then we might conclude that there may be some truth to astrology as well.

Born under a bad sign?
LIFE 24 January 2007
By ALISON MOTLUK
THE star you were born under influences the person you become. Not something you expect to hear from scientists but, incredibly, it seems to be true. There is firm evidence that the time of year you are born affects not just your personality, but also your health, specifically your chances of developing serious mental illness. But don’t expect to find clues in your horoscopes. The star in question is the star we were all born under – the sun.
Being born at certain times of year gives a small but significantly increased risk of problems such as depression, schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa. The question is no longer if the seasons affect mental health, but how. Pinning this down could yield vital clues on how to intervene to prevent mental illness.
“The question is no longer if the seasons affect mental health, but how”
The effect was first noticed as far back as 1929, when Swiss psychologist Moritz Tramer reported that people born in late winter were more likely to develop schizophrenia. We now know that for people born in the northern hemisphere in February, March and April, the risk of developing schizophrenia is between 5 and 10 per cent greater than for those born at other times of the year. The effect has been replicated numerous times over the decades and is far from trivial. According to a study carried out at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, the increased risk of schizophrenia that comes with a winter birthday is almost twice the increase in risk linked to having a parent or sibling with the disorder.

Quote source:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325881-700-born-under-a-bad-sign/#ixzz6CK8IySxM


Notice no exact reason why is determined for this time of year birth to have this
effect - So why not believe that a whole host of stars and planets may also be
having an effect on who we are and events in our lives ???
 
Why wouldn't the climate have an effect? I bet you wouldn't see this in a place like Ecuador. How old you are when you start school can also have an effect.
 
Ermintruder said:
I may (accidentally) have a classic personal opportunity to test the validity of astrology.

Despite being instinctively a doubter regarding astrology (as I am about most things), I was given a personalised professional (well, costly) chart, based upon my place/date/time of birth, by a good friend. This detailed document (filled with general and specific predictions and pronouncements) was produced in London about 25yrs ago, whereupon I lost it.

However....it's recently resurfaced, at home. In it's original once-opened honest brown envelope. By which I mean it's a lot less lost that it was, I should be able to find it within an hour's searching.

So I have the tantalising opportunity....to retrospectively-compare the actuality of my quarter-century's life experiences, with the sealed, ready-cast predictions of 1992.

Will I do this? I really should. If I do, and I find it genuinely has predicted the sequential reality of my lifeline, I will be afraid/shocked and surprised.

I'm in the unlucky/lucky position of having had a number of undeniably-distinct step-changes of career and life direction. It will be interesting to see whether my "chart" even comes close to predestinating these rocks & ripples.

Oct 30, 2018
This is one of my undischarged obligations to the forum....I had hoped to conclude (well, commence & complete) this genuinely-interesting actuality-versus-artistry comparison, but the faeries have kept hiding the damned document over the last year.

So once we've crossed the river, to the other side... if we all make it over intact, I shall finally track-down that envelope, again, find-out how accurate (or not) my sealed 20thC astrological reading was, and post it at https://forums.forteana.org - the Forteana Message Board hosted by the Charles Fort Foundation

I am sad that there is much that I'd intended to start, and to finish, here on the traditional FTMB home forum, but have failed to so do. Hopefully that can begin to be tackled, from 1 November 2018 onwards.
I can't actually believe it's over 12 months since you mentioned this. Some sort of time slip, Shirley? I've been holding my breath... Damn faeries.
Come on @Ermintruder or am I going to have come round and search your byre myself!

Again, that strange cyclical time of year has arrived (perhaps it's more like..... a metabiennial materialisation?).

That Elusive Envelope Of Doom has at long-last reappeared......and been hastily torn open by me (with very little ceremony, other than lots of oaths/blaspheming and other rude words, in mid-rip, as the manilla monster gave me an under-nail papercut and a dried-glue palm-rash). It was either that, or sending it away on another uncertain orbit of my locality.

I did worry that perhaps it just contained a copy of the Radio Times, but no.....the Real Thing is definitely inside there!

So: very soon I shall find-out whether my destiny was accurately predicted, nearly 30 years ago. But first I need to sleep.
 
Oct 30, 2018




Again, that strange cyclical time of year has arrived (perhaps it's more like..... a metabiennial materialisation?).

That Elusive Envelope Of Doom has at long-last reappeared......and been hastily torn open by me (with very little ceremony, other than lots of oaths/blaspheming and other rude words, in mid-rip, as the manilla monster gave me an under-nail papercut and a dried-glue palm-rash). It was either that, or sending it away on another uncertain orbit of my locality.

I did worry that perhaps it just contained a copy of the Radio Times, but no.....the Real Thing is definitely inside there!

So: very soon I shall find-out whether my destiny was accurately predicted, nearly 30 years ago. But first I need to sleep.
C'mon - you've had enough sleep by now surely.
 
Didn't Colin Wilson, in his occult series, do a fairly in depth study of astrology?

AFAIR, he came up with the doesn't exceed statistical significance conclusion too.

That is interesting though, to interpret the position of the earth relative to the sun as being significant, when what it sounds like is Seasonal Dissaffective Disorder.

It should be possible to do a fairly wide meta study now, given that there is probably a lot of published material.
 
C'mon - you've had enough sleep by now surely.
Unfortunately it'll now need to be started tomorrow - I've had a lot of unexpected offline reality happening at me, today :-(

My provisional plan: is to do a first rapid read looking for extreme HITS (with full confirmation bias being applied), followed then by a search for utter& complete MISSES (in super-skeptic mode). And then total-up to see which impression is in the arithmetic majority.

Followed by: a detailed dissection.
 
Now here is some 'scientific evidence' that when you were born is relevant to who you are - Though not exactly the same as astrology, if it is true, then we might conclude that there may be some truth to astrology as well.

Born under a bad sign?
LIFE 24 January 2007
By ALISON MOTLUK
THE star you were born under influences the person you become. Not something you expect to hear from scientists but, incredibly, it seems to be true. There is firm evidence that the time of year you are born affects not just your personality, but also your health, specifically your chances of developing serious mental illness. But don’t expect to find clues in your horoscopes. The star in question is the star we were all born under – the sun.
Being born at certain times of year gives a small but significantly increased risk of problems such as depression, schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa. The question is no longer if the seasons affect mental health, but how. Pinning this down could yield vital clues on how to intervene to prevent mental illness.
“The question is no longer if the seasons affect mental health, but how”
The effect was first noticed as far back as 1929, when Swiss psychologist Moritz Tramer reported that people born in late winter were more likely to develop schizophrenia. We now know that for people born in the northern hemisphere in February, March and April, the risk of developing schizophrenia is between 5 and 10 per cent greater than for those born at other times of the year. The effect has been replicated numerous times over the decades and is far from trivial. According to a study carried out at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark, the increased risk of schizophrenia that comes with a winter birthday is almost twice the increase in risk linked to having a parent or sibling with the disorder.

Quote source:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325881-700-born-under-a-bad-sign/#ixzz6CK8IySxM


Notice no exact reason why is determined for this time of year birth to have this
effect - So why not believe that a whole host of stars and planets may also be
having an effect on who we are and events in our lives ???

I actually thought it might be a Vit D deficiency so I had a google.

As with the seasonality of medical illness risk, the association of the month or season of birth with psychiatric disorders may be based on skewed samples or simply a chance finding. However, there may be some seasonal environmental factors that could increase the risk for disorders of the body or the brain/mind. The most plausible factors may be season-related fetal developmental disruptions caused by maternal infection, diet, lack of sunlight, temperature, substance use, or immune dysregulation from comorbid medical conditions during pregnancy. Some researchers have speculated that fluctuations in the availability of various fresh fruits and vegetables during certain seasons of the year may influence fetal development or increase the susceptibility to some medical disorders. This may be at the time of conception or during the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, when the brain develops.

On the other hand, those studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, may constitute a sophisticated form of “psychiatric astrology” whose credibility could be as suspect as the imaginative predictions of one’s horoscope in the daily newspaper…


https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/191756/seasonality-birth-and-psychiatric-illness/page/0/1
 
Some years ago, as an experiment, I started reading and analysing my horoscope in a daily newspaper every day. I appreciate that the 20 words per day tucked away in a tabloid is not the same as "real" astrology, eg compiling a full birth or processing chart. What I found was firstly that many of the predictions were so vague that i could read a lot into them- for example they may talk about needing to be wary but with no indication of why or in what circumstance.

The second thing I started to notice was (to me) much more interesting. Despite being a Sagittarius, I noticed that the predictions were Scorpio were almost always more relevant to me. Even allowing for the vagueness of the "information", I could usually relate much more readily to Scorpio than to my own sign. I'd estimate that on around 75% of days, I could read the Scorpio box and it would instantly chime with something in my life, whereas Sagittarius was relevant maybe once a week, if that.

How much of this was me unconsciously seeing what I wanted to see? I've no idea. I tried to remain as objective as possible throughout the couple of months i kept this up but i may simply have been the victim of my own confirmation bias.
 
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Finally, I know that personally, even with my level of education, I would not understand a scientific paper (even if it were written by an articulate scientist, which is a rarity). Therefore I know perfectly well that you couldn’t.
Err...I don't want to be the guy who casts up old disagreements, but there is a HUGE difference between intelligence and academic qualifications.

Many tradesmen can visualise and solve complex real-world problems without many, or any, school exam passes let alone university degrees.

There's a page in Alexei Sayle's novel Overtaken in which he beautifully describes how bricklayers "think in a profound form of 3D" and reshape the world "solving problems [we] didn't even know were there" but are often dismissed and assumed to be unintelligent.
 
Some years ago, as an experiment, I started reading and analysing my horoscope in a daily newspaper every day. I appreciate that the 20 words per day tucked away in a tabloid is not the same as "real" astrology, eg compiling a full birth or processing chart. What I found was firstly that many of the predictions were so vague that i could read a lot into them- for example they may talk about needing to be wary but with no indication of why or in what circumstance.

The second thing I started to notice was (to me) much more interesting. Despite being a Sagittarius, I noticed that the predictions were Scorpio were almost always more relevant to me. Even allowing for the vagueness of the "information", I could usually relate much more readily to Scorpio than to my own sign. I'd estimate that on around 75% of days, I could read the Scorpio box and it would instantly chime with something in my life, whereas Sagittarius was relevant maybe once a week, if that.

How much of this was me unconsciously seeing what I wanted to see? I've no idea. I tried to start as objective as possible throughout the couple of months i kept this up but i may simply have been the victim of my own confirmation bias.
Maybe be you should start self-identifying as a scorpio :p
 
Err...I don't want to be the guy who casts up old disagreements, but there is a HUGE difference between intelligence and academic qualifications.

Many tradesmen can visualise and solve complex real-world problems without many, or any, school exam passes let alone university degrees.

There's a page in Alexei Sayle's novel Overtaken in which he beautifully describes how bricklayers "think in a profound form of 3D" and reshape the world "solving problems [we] didn't even know were there" but are often dismissed and assumed to be unintelligent.
For sure. The ex was a high school teacher with no sixth form and only the local college for kids to go on to.

He taught many brilliant mathematicians who could easily have taken maths or physics degrees but as they had no example to follow and were culturally suspicious about higher education, the best they could be persuaded to do was an apprenticeship.
He'd advise some to become electricians because good maths ability is essential for that work.
 
I'm sure there are people who would agree that I'm scorpion-like: venomous, shifty, and not very pleasant to look at!
The problem scorpions can have is that in the effort to sting someone, they hurt themselves instead.
 
I actually thought it might be a Vit D deficiency so I had a google.

As with the seasonality of medical illness risk, the association of the month or season of birth with psychiatric disorders may be based on skewed samples or simply a chance finding. However, there may be some seasonal environmental factors that could increase the risk for disorders of the body or the brain/mind. The most plausible factors may be season-related fetal developmental disruptions caused by maternal infection, diet, lack of sunlight, temperature, substance use, or immune dysregulation from comorbid medical conditions during pregnancy. Some researchers have speculated that fluctuations in the availability of various fresh fruits and vegetables during certain seasons of the year may influence fetal development or increase the susceptibility to some medical disorders. This may be at the time of conception or during the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, when the brain develops.

On the other hand, those studies, published in peer-reviewed journals, may constitute a sophisticated form of “psychiatric astrology” whose credibility could be as suspect as the imaginative predictions of one’s horoscope in the daily newspaper…


https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/191756/seasonality-birth-and-psychiatric-illness/page/0/1
I've often wondered if conditions that a small baby comes into might influence them growing up, so that personality etc may fluctuate more on a seasonal basis rather than an astrological basis. For example, babies born in the summer tend to get taken out and shown around more - it's more pleasant to leave the house and be outdoors, no necessity for layers and layers of heavy clothing, etc - which may give rise to more naturally outgoing and gregarious personalities, whilst those born in the depths of winter tend to be kept indoors more, not taken out as much, and may mean that the 'socialisation window' for being happy in new company has closed by the time they are old enough to be in more mixed company.

It is noticeable that my summer-born children (3 of them) are more sociable and 'easier' in company than their autumn and winter born siblings.

Or it could just be purely chance.
 
I've often wondered if conditions that a small baby comes into might influence them growing up, so that personality etc may fluctuate more on a seasonal basis rather than an astrological basis. For example, babies born in the summer tend to get taken out and shown around more - it's more pleasant to leave the house and be outdoors, no necessity for layers and layers of heavy clothing, etc - which may give rise to more naturally outgoing and gregarious personalities, whilst those born in the depths of winter tend to be kept indoors more, not taken out as much, and may mean that the 'socialisation window' for being happy in new company has closed by the time they are old enough to be in more mixed company.

It is noticeable that my summer-born children (3 of them) are more sociable and 'easier' in company than their autumn and winter born siblings.

Or it could just be purely chance.
I was born in February and I'm outgoing, sociable, and make friends easily, my brother born in June on the other hand, is a recluse, a misanthrope and about as unsociable as you can get around people he does know.
 
I was born in February and I'm outgoing, sociable, and make friends easily, my brother born in June on the other hand, is a recluse, a misanthrope and about as unsociable as you can get around people he does know.
Well, yes, it's an inexact science...:)
 
It would also depend on which hemisphere you are in.
 
When I was a teen in the 1960s everyone was talking about the Age of Aquarius bringing peace, happiness, and love.

Everyone was going around singing the songs from the musical “ Hair “.

The music festival “ Woodstock “ was the craze, and it is rumored that many babies were born nine months later.

This Age of Aquarius idea is garbage because I only see our planet getting worse and worse.

Astrology is fantasy !
 
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