http://www.astrology-and-science.com/h-eyse2.htmEysenck was involved with astrology mostly during 1975-1985, ten years after he became involved with parapsychology. His interest in astrology was aroused by the findings of Michel Gauquelin (1926-1991). Over the years Gauquelin had disconfirmed many of astrology's claims, but one curious finding persisted. At the birth of eminent professionals such as soldiers and painters, certain planets tended to prefer or avoid the areas just past rise and upper culmination, roughly one fifth of the total. The surplus or deficit could not be explained by demographic or astronomic artifacts and was typically 10 to 25 per cent more than expected. (This may seem like a lot but the corresponding effect size, which for thirty years nobody bothered to calculate, was only 0.02 to 0.05.) To add to the puzzle, the effect disappeared if the professionals were not eminent. The usual explanations such as sampling errors did not apply because Gauquelin used large samples with N sometimes exceeding 3000,
the results were highly significant with p often below 0.0001, and the effect seemed to replicate. Eysenck was impressed, and gave a favourable review of the Gauquelin results in the now-defunct magazine New Behaviour (1975).
