The Astrology File

Gunter Sachs and IMWA

Some of you will have already heard of Gunter Sachs (1932 – 2011) – a jet set photographer and documentary film-maker who became famous when he married (and soon divorced) Brigitte Bardot.  It is less known that he was interested in astrology and actually founded an Institute, the Institute for Empirical and Mathematical Research into the Truthfulness of Astrology concerning Human Behavior and Predisposition” – IMWA for short.  He was qualified to carry out such research since he had studied mathematics and economics at University. 

Whilst the Gauquelins had done all their work by hand, Gunter Sachs was able to take advantage of the entry into the computer era.  He resorted to IT specialists and to the highly qualified services of statisticians working at the Faculty of Statistics at Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich (Germany) to process and analyze the data of millions of individuals that he secured via his high level contacts from official authoritative sources, such as Federal Office of Statistics in Berne. 

He spent two years carrying out research designed  to answer one fundamental question:   “Does the star sign under which a person is born have any influence on that person’s nature?

Methods

The Institute set out to carry out a series of studies designed to see whether there were differences that could not be explained by chance in the behavior of individuals belonging to the 12 star signs, related to a specific parameter, e.g. divorce.  In simple words:  do people belonging to one or more star signs divorce more than people belonging to other star signs?

Before starting the actual research, the team set a few guidelines:

·       Studies were to be published even if they failed to prove the existence of differences among star signs.  Also negative results were of interest

·       Research was to be based exclusively on actual data collected by officially recognized bodies

·       Astrologers were NOT to be directly involved or interviewed.  Their expertise was not required, since the studies were related to a parameter that could easily be ascertained without their help

·       Any factors that might have distorted statistical results were to be examined and explained scientifically.  An example is the fact that more births occur in spring than in autumn

·       Results were to be presented using pre-set definitions in compliance with generally accepted statistical terms in the scientific community

·       All calculations and results were to be checked by a suitable neutral authority, such as a University

Statistics

The book includes a chapter explaining statistics for non statisticians to help with the comprehension of the presentation of the results.

Contrary to what one might believe statistical tests used in scientific studies cannot demonstrate that a theory is valid with certainty.  All they can do is say how probable a certain difference is due to chance and not to the factor under investigation. 

In other words, the results provided the probability that the differences observed among individuals belonging to the 12 star signs were due to chance.  It goes without saying that such a probability was as low as one in a million, then it would be very likely indeed that  the theory that star signs influence behavior is true.

In the studies the statisticians set the following definitions for the differences observed among star signs:

-         “slightly significant”= the probability that the difference was due to chance was no more than 5%  i.e. 1 in 20

-        “significant”  =   the probability that the difference was due to chance was no more than 1%  i.e. 1 in 100

-        “highly significant” = the probability that the difference was due to chance was no more than 0.1%  i.e. 1 in 1,000

IMRA results – overview