The Science of Astrology

The Moon and Neptune and Insanity, Olympic Champions

and Mars and Artists and Venus.

Brian Thomas Johnston

In light of the previous study of planetary aspects (Planetary Aspects and the Behaviour of Human Beings) I decided to undertake another similar study. I used the Astro-Databank and searched for insane as the key word. Thirty individuals were found in the database that had indeed been insane and committed to an asylum. Some of the charts were rejected due to dirty data as the requirement was to have at least an ‘A’ Rodden rating. The Moon and Neptune are most often referenced in astrology to determine the probability of insanity for an individual from their birth charts. All ten planets were used, including Pluto and the aspects divisible by 15 degrees were all included.

The results were very interesting as the moon proved to be highly significant with 17 out of 30 individuals having the moon with the aspect with the smallest orb in the horoscope. The P value was 0.003911, significant at the 99.6% confidence level. Even though Neptune has been considered to be related to insanity the results were exactly the same as the random at 7 individuals.

The Next study was to determine if any of the angles were associated with Olympic Medal Winners and the aspects of Mars. An orb of +/- 2 degrees was used. No correlation was found between the angles, ascendant medium coeli, descendant or, nadir. Fifteen individuals out of thirty were found to have this characteristic. The expected from the random was fifteen. This means a perfectly random distribution.

The final study was an attempt to once again to associate Venus with beauty. This time in relation to artists. In society we presume that artists are strongly attracted to beauty and it’s expression which they portray in their works. For this study it was found that Venus was extremely significant. The first 80 artists found by searching artist in the Astro-Databank, so another random selection. Thirty three of the eighty had Venus with the aspect with the smallest orb. The random was 17. The P value was 0.003073 with a confidence level of 99.7%.

Discussion: The fact that the moon was strongly associated with the limited database available is very significant as we do not have any more samples to draw from in this vast database. The moon has always been associated with mental illness and here we have it strongly confirmed. The fact that Neptune was not significant is also quite interesting as of the seven individuals that had Neptune with the closest aspect four of the seven were with the moon. It may be that Neptune needs the aspect with the moon to activate it in a person’s psyche. More research into this will take place in the future. If Neptune on it’s own does not produce insanity, then we have to further examine just what it does do to a person’s behavioural characteristics.

Michel Gauquelin associated Mars with the areas near to the axes to be associated with sports champions (The Mars Effect) however no significance could be found in this limited study. More work needs to be done here.

The study that associated Venus with Artists in very, very significant as it replicates the previous study of Beauty and Venus. Here we have the manifestation of beauty in a person’s being found in the previous study and now we have people producing beauty through works of art associated with beauty as well. With eighty individuals this is a very robust study and once again correlates planetary aspects with human behaviours.

Conclusion: The Moon’s aspect at birth appear to mold a person’s mind, as the Moon has always represented the mind in astrology, in such a way that reality is distorted when the prime aspect in a person’s chart involves the Moon. The fact that four of the seven Neptune charts were associated with the moon seems to indicate that as astrological research has shown that Neptune can also distort reality for the individual if it is associated with the moon. These findings should help in developing new treatments for the insane with more studies to follow.

The coupling of artists with Venus is quite really stunning as the correlation is very strong. It makes necessary the need to understand nature itself much more if the cosmic forcing of the planetary aspects is such that under prime conditions it produces great artists through the Venusian aspects.

The Mars study with Olympic Champions and the angles is not significant. The angles themselves are rather amorphous features of the environment and warp and woof depending on which house system is used. Much more study need to be undertaken here before an conclusions can be made.

Once again we can see that though our evolution we have learned to adapt to cosmic conditions and have learned how through our physiology and our genetics to use the planetary aspects to enhance our talents in specific areas and our basic behaviours. The fact that a large percentage of the people who were incarcerated, as only individuals who had a high Rodden rating and had been incarcerated in an mental institution were used for the study, means that in childhood special attention can be applied to the sufferers of these conditions so as to reduce and prevent full blown mental illness in later years.

I feel that this is another major step in establishing astrology as a real and valuable science in the 21st century. Astrology can enhance every area of life and can help us to better manage our world in the future.