Popular astrology

The commercial and journalistic forms astrology took in the twentieth century, their production constraints, and the gap between them and the technical tradition.

5 entries

  • "Vedic Astrology": the TermTermModernHellenistic

    A modern label for the Indian astrological tradition, and what the textual record does and does not support about the antiquity it claims.

  • Testing AstrologyConceptModern

    What the empirical tests of astrology show, why the most-cited result is not the strongest one, and what a test like this cannot settle.

  • The Barnum EffectConceptModern

    An identical, mostly flattering personality sketch reads as a precise account of one person: the 1949 demonstration, its real numbers, and why.

  • The Relative Age EffectConceptModern

    Children born just after a school cutoff are nearly a year older than classmates, and it shows in test scores, sport selection, and later life.

  • The Sun-Sign ColumnConceptModern

    The twelve-paragraph newspaper horoscope is a commercial format of the 1930s, produced by a printing constraint, and it has no premodern precedent at all.