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Would you like to contribute to some wizardly research into the workings of astrology? Sign up for the newsletter* using this link or the pop-up form on this page and I will send you a free astrological profile and birth chart! Your full colour chart can be printed - it looks great framed! The detailed analysis is 30 or more fascinating pages, unique to you.
How well does our sign describe us, or rather that unique combination of signs that makes up our astrological signature? Is Chinese astrology really more accurate than Western astrology ? Can astrology be predictive? And if so, what can it predict? And how accurately?
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I'll email for your feedback which will give a statistical analysis to the quality of predictions made - I doubt that a clear, quantitative answer to these questions can ever be determined, but the research I already have consistently shows that astrology produces a far higher 'hit rate' for accuracy than pure chance would return. My research also suggests that this accuracy lies in specific areas, especially character and behaviour, and is mostly dependent on a level of knowledge being met or exceeded. The 'average' person whose knowledge is restricted to their sun sign and what they read in the newspaper column is more likely, when given 3 unlabelled astrological profiles, to pick the wrong one as being theirs than to recognise the 'right' one. For many, such a result instantly confirms that astrology is worthless. BUT - Give the same test to someone with a working knowledge of astrology, no more than basic, but a knowledge of all the signs and their basic traits, and they will usually get it right (even when 'give away' references to 'lions' 'shells' 'scales' etc have been removed). What is more they will often identify their friends' profiles correctly. This has, for me, dispelled the unquestioning credulity given to the 'Forer Effect' which, whilst it demonstates something about gullibility does not demonstrate anything about astrology. That people fall for the Forer effect does not explain anything about astrology (and just a very little about peoples' reaction to it). There are much more exacting tests that can be applied.* The main problem with it is that it is deliberately contrived with statements that most people will see as true and/or desirable, and it proves, if anything, that people will aspire to and agree with such statements. It does not prove that this is what astrology does and far too much weight is given to what is just an entertaining trick demonstrating human gullibility. Something similar was screened recently in the UK when a skeptic set himself up in a mall as a tarot reader with just a handful of glib, stock phrases and gleefully pointed out how easily fooled people were. Watching this, I thought the 'victims' looked more embarrassed than fooled - both because his performance was so awful and because they were being filmed. They were being polite, not taken in. All readers have times when it just doesn't work - there are some people that, for whatever reason, they just can't read for. Good tarot is little more than very focused conversation and that is not belittling it in the slightest - it's worth paying for in itself.
Lastly there is the stock, rather glib assertion that people likely 'live up to' the characteristics they believe their sign confers. Quite likely this is true for many people - it doesn't make the whole phenomenon any the less interesting!
