Application of astrology to health psychology : psychological and astrological factors and fertility treatment outcome

Abstract

A dataset of 114 treatments experienced by 27 women in the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA was explored for astrological patterns associated with fertility treatment outcome. The dataset was divided into two groups: successful outcome, where successful outcome is defined as “baby resulting from treatment” (n = 16), and failed outcome (n = 98).  Contacts of Venus and Jupiter, associated in traditional astrology with fertility and childbirth, were compared for presence and absence at time of fertility treatment outcome for both groups.  The secondary progression and transit systems were used, and it was found that major beneficial contacts, including conjunctions of Venus and/or Jupiter, were significantly more likely to be present at times of treatment resulting in the birth of a live baby (p = <0.001).

Psychological, astrological and socio-demographic factors were then considered together in a series of different logistic regression models. It was found that the best model contained the factors: personal depression (p = 0.014), clinic location (p<0.001) and astrological factors excluding angles (p<0.001), and was the most effective (explanatory power 41%) at identifying treatment outcome for the sample in study 1, identifying 54% of successes and 98% of failures with an overall percentage of 92%.

These explanatory findings were then tested again in Study 2.

In a blind test of 12 cases, using astrological factors alone, two out of three successes and eight out of nine failures were correctly identified (p=0.064). 

When the model was correctly fitted to the clinic sample data, none of the factors was significant at the 5% level.

In Study 2, when comparing Study 2 fertility treatment women (n=14) with Study 1 control group (n=17, non-ft women with no reported history), the significant association found in Study 1 for medical astrology factors and presence of fertility treatment history was replicated (p = 0.0237).

In view of the close-to-significant result for astrology as a predictor of treatment outcome and the smallness of the samples studied, it is recommended that further research be undertaken on larger samples to gain a better insight into this phenomenon.

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