In the year or so that I’ve offered the Skeptics Challenge, Paul is just the second person to participate. He sent me his birth date and time and I sent him a short reading which he has reproduced on his site here. He conducted a “scientific” experiment where he took the two most general statements that were made in the reading and conducted a poll to see how many people these statements applied to. The statements were these:

“You have a far-reaching vision that is fair and just and a strong idealistic sense of justice and freedom” (78% accurate for 33 people) [This statement was taken out of context, the entire concept was this: “There is a far-reaching vision that is fair and just and a strong idealistic sense of justice and freedom. Aquarius is the revolutionary and the inventor – there is an affinity for the unusual and the path not traveled.”

“you seek to be nurtured in a way that preserves your autonomy and ability to express your own needs” (68% accurate for 32 people) [again, taken out of context – here is the complete concept: “The yearning for freedom is a theme in your chart – your Moon falls in Aries, showing that you seek to be nurtured (Moon) in a way that preserves your autonomy and ability to express your own needs (Aries). . . . and in Aries there is a need for self-preservation and adventure. This is not a placement that demonstrates a great deal of compassion or empathy, that is not how you are wired.”

Paul concluded that this means that the reading contained only general statements that could apply to anyone and the astrological symbolism was “bunk.” The two statements above represent psychological conflicts that are certainly common to many people, and I think most people like to think that they have a strong sense of justice and freedom. However, these were just two of the many things I wrote (although I did keep the reading short because it was after all a mini-reading).

Paul did not test these statements as well, which were more specific to him:

“Mercury in Aquarius is logical and innovative – a brilliant thinker who often seems to download new ideas rather than learning through conventional means. “

“There is a desire for a relationship that may defy convention – perhaps a long-distance relationship or one where each partner has a great deal of freedom. “

“You are actually quite sensitive but that it is difficult for you to integrate that sensitivity into your personality in a way that doesn’t feel vulnerable or painful. You are far more comfortable with the reason and logic of your Aquarian nature than that vulnerability and it is not uncommon for us to submerge aspects of our personality that give us discomfort.”

“- part of you craves stability and material wealth (Taurus) and part of you resists becoming enmeshed in convention (Aquarius). “

If all of his polltakers were the same age as Paul they may have all been going through the cycles below, which are generational in nature and therefore strike everyone in the same age group at the same time:

[Regarding the Uranus Opposition cycle that Paul is going through} Everyone experiences this process differently – for those of us who resist change and take the safe path, the Uranus Opposition can be very destabilizing as we become driven by a deep restlessness and urge for something different. Marriages can break up under this transit, we become frustrated by our jobs as Uranus urges us to break out of routines and live a more authentic life. This began for you in April (you would have started feeling it in early March) and continued through August of last year.

[Regarding the Neptune square cycle] “We can become confused and feel that our ship has lost its rudder as Neptune urges us to look within and find a true experience of the divine.”

So Paul – how about a true scientific experiment? Let’s try a new poll and add the other statements from the reading along with the complete concepts of the two that you used in your survey instead of just pulling out the most general statements.

And thank you for playing the Skeptics Challenge!