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Astrology really works!
This approach really doesn't

Geoffrey Dean

The original review, of which this is a slightly expanded version with an added appendix on declination probability, appeared as "Crooked Thinking is Alive and Well" in Skeptical Inquirer 1997, 21 (2), 46-48.

Astrology Really Works! By the Magi Society. Hay House, Carson CA, 1995.
ISBN 1-56170-134-3. 327 pp. Softcover, $12.95.

Abstract -- This is a strange book. It claims to present irrefutable evidence that astrology really works, but there is no reference to any astrologer, article, book, or published research. It claims to advance astrology into the 21st century by tossing out all chart factors except aspects, parallels and contra-parallels, and by supposedly proving astrology via various observations such as aspect counts among the rich and famous. The observations are restated as Six Challenges To Skeptics, which on close inspection are clearly artifacts and clearly unwinnable. Whatever our opinion of astrology, unbelievable books like this one can only make it worse. Includes a look at the probability (0 through 1) of a contact in declination, which within 0.03 is orb/12.