Sun-sign astrology (also known as
newspaper astrology) is the form of astrology most commonly found in many
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
and magazine columns. It is a simplified system of
astrologyAstrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer...
which considers only the position of the
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
, which is said to be placed within one of the twelve zodiac signs depending on the month of birth. This sign is then called the
sun sign or
star sign of the person born that month.
Sun sign astrologers take this basic twelve-fold division and relate all the current movements of all the planets to each other, using traditional rules to divine meanings for each sign separately.
Sun-sign astrology (also known as
newspaper astrology) is the form of astrology most commonly found in many
newspaperA newspaper is a publication containing news, information, and advertising. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on political events, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports. Most traditional papers also feature an editorial page containing columns that express the...
and magazine columns. It is a simplified system of
astrologyAstrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details can provide information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer...
which considers only the position of the
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
, which is said to be placed within one of the twelve zodiac signs depending on the month of birth. This sign is then called the
sun sign or
star sign of the person born that month.
Sun sign astrologers take this basic twelve-fold division and relate all the current movements of all the planets to each other, using traditional rules to divine meanings for each sign separately. Paradoxically, because the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
has the fastest apparent movement of all the heavenly bodies, it is often used as the main indicator of daily trends for sun sign astrology forecasts.
Despite its vast popularity with the general public (e.g. in the UK over 60% of adults are said to read their "stars"
first on opening a newspaper, a slightly higher proportion in the USA), there is much argument about the validity of sun sign astrology, particularly amongst astrologers of different persuasions. The more traditional the astrologer, the more likely they are to dislike sun sign astrology.
As with all astrology, it is considered
pseudosciencePseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
or
superstitionSuperstition is a credulous belief or notion, not based on reason, knowledge, or experience. The word is often used pejoratively to refer to folk beliefs deemed irrational. This leads to some superstitions being called "old wives' tales"...
by
astronomersAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
and most other scientists.
History
Although
William LillyWilliam Lilly , was a famed English astrologer and occultist during his time. Lilly was particularly adept at interpreting the astrological charts drawn up for horary questions, as this was his speciality....
in the 17th century was the first newspaper
astrologerAn astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
(in fact some people believe that newspapers began as largely-astrological prediction-sheets), sun sign astrology was not invented until 1930. The astrologer
R. H. NaylorRichard Harold Naylor , better known as R. H. Naylor was the first sun sign astrologer.Newspaper astrology columns began in August 1930 in the Sunday Express, just after the birth of Princess Margaret. The editor wanted a story on her birth but with a new angle, so Cheiro was asked to do her...
was claimed by his newspaper to have predicted the crash of the
R101R101 was a British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. After initial flights, and two enlargements to the lifting volume, it crashed on 5 October 1930 in France during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48 people...
airship. This led to pressure on Naylor to come up with a simplified system of astrology suitable for a newspaper column. After some experimentation, Naylor decided on sun signs.
Criticisms of sun sign astrology
Owing to the popularity of
horoscopeIn astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, the astrological aspects, and sensitive angles at the time of an event, such as the moment of a person's birth. The word horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning "a look at the hours" In...
columns in many newspapers and magazines, it is often erroneously believed that
sun sign astrologySun-sign astrology is the form of astrology most commonly found in many newspaper and magazine columns. It is a simplified system of astrology which considers only the position of the Sun, which is said to be placed within one of the twelve zodiac signs depending on the month of birth...
is the whole extent of astrology. Some, perhaps many
Horoscopic astrologersHoroscopic astrology is a form of astrology which uses a horoscope, a visual representation of the heavens, for a specific moment in time in order to interpret the inherent meaning underlying the alignment of the planets at that moment...
view these predictions as highly generalized and of little value.
For example, each person also has a Moon sign, a Mercury sign, a Venus sign etc, and these do NOT conform to the above dates, and change greatly from year to year. Sun-sign astrologers are unable to take these and many other variables into account.
Counter Criticisms
The argument for sun sign astrology holds that everyone and everything is subject to general forces. For example, a person may plan to walk to the shop the following day, but when they see the weather (which affects everyone) they may change their mind and drive there instead. In this example, a
general influence has overcome a
personal one. Sun sign astrology says that such generally-applicable factors are also found astrologically.
Sun signs are held to represent certain sub-sections of the population. Research by insurance companies within their own massive databases is reported to have revealed differences between the relative safety on the roads of people born at different times of year. The
Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, September 14, 1997 mentions this research and also the remarkable results of a marketing company analysing shopping habits by zodiac sign.
The Swiss mathematician and astrologer
Gunter SachsFritz Gunter Sachs is a German mathematician, photographer, author and multi-millionaire industrialist. Gunter Sachs’ mother was the daughter of Wilhelm von Opel; his father was Willy Sachs, sole owner of Fichtel & Sachs AG Fichtel & Sachs, a leading manufacturer of ball bearings and one of...
did some extensive research on massive samples (using nearly a million data sets) and demonstrated striking differences between people of different zodiac signs. These results were reported in newspapers all over the world, for example the
Daily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid newspaper. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the paper were launched in...
, November 6, 1997.
Link to that report.