Alcoholism (Part 2)
Jungian Rules

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Commentaries on this study

Part 1:  Control Group
Part 3:  C.E.O. Carter Rules
Part 4:  Testing Reader Suggestions

This week we will begin a quest to find an AstroSignature for Alcoholism. We will start with a Jungian approach. Jung had a profound impact on Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA. In a letter to Bill Wilson, Jung wrote, "Alcohol in Latin is Spiritus, and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as the most depraving poison. A helpful formula therefore is Spiritus contra spiritum." In another letter he referred to Bill Wilson thus: "His craving for alcohol was equivalent on a low level to the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

Christina Groff in her book "A Thirst for Wholeness" continues the Jungian analysis and declares alcoholism a distorted attempt to quench a free floating yearning for wholeness. It is no coincidence that Alcoholics Anonymous, the most successful antidote for alcoholism, is also the biggest spiritual organization in America.

In astrological language all this adds up to Pisces and Neptune afflictions. So we are going to build an AstroSignature to count for planets in Pisces and Neptune afflictions to see if this is a good predictor of alcoholic behavior.

Here is the AstroSignature we are going to try.

1. Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Ruler of the Ascendant in Pisces
2. Mercury–Saturn in Pisces
3. Neptune on an angle
4. Neptune conjunct, square, opposed or inconjunct Sun, Moon , ASC, or ASC ruler
5. Neptune conjunct, square, opposed or inconjunct Mercury–Saturn

An AstroSignature for Alcoholism (click to enlarge)

The Setup

There are 255 alcoholics in the AstroDatabank with a Rodden Rating of B or above. Before we test the AstroSignature, we must prepare the data in two ways:

1. Build a control group.
2. Divide the data into an AstroSignature study group and replication test group.

We must have a control group to make sure that whatever results we come up with are truly significant and not just a consequence of having a less than completely random selection of alcoholics. It would, for example, be wrong to conclude that alcoholics are twice as likely to have Scorpio rising than Pisces rising, when this is true for everyone born in the United States. Click here for a detailed article on building control groups.

We need to cut the group in half so we can work with half of the alcoholics to build an AstroSignature and then test it on the other half. If you did not split the group in two you run the risk of building an AstroSignature tuned to the eccentricities of that group of records without knowing if your formula is robust enough to work on other sets of alcoholics. Click here for step by step directions.

This is a crucial step often left out of astrological studies. There are so many factors to consider in astrology that it is relatively easy to find some set of factors that are unusually popular among any random group of charts. I know of only one set of research results – the Gauquelin studies – that have survived replication. The rest seem to have found astrological factors that were popular amongst a sub-group of people who share a behavioral trait, but these same factors did not prove to be popular among a second set of people with the same behavioral trait.

Here's the big picture:
We are going to test a hundred or more astrological factors to see which ones show the greatest difference between the group of alcoholics and the control group. We will then pick the ten best and call this our AstroSignature for alcoholism. Looking at a hundred factors and picking the ten best is almost like cheating because one can't tell if those ten best factors are peculiar to this subset of alcoholics or works with all alcoholics. By setting aside half the data before we start, we have a second set of alcoholics to find out how generalizable our results are.

The Results

Without the benefit of a control group you might just pat yourself on the back and say, "Wow, I found a formula for alcoholism that works with 89% of alcoholics." Not so fast.

Let's compare these results to the control group:

Discussion

All of these factors taken together show up in 88% of the control group. Remember this the next time you read a study that claims to have found factors that explain 80% of mass murderers, artists, musicians, etc. Ask yourself, "Where are the control group statistics?" Better yet, write to the editor and insist that only studies with control group statistics get published. Otherwise we are just fooling ourselves into thinking we have a discovery.

We have learned some things from this study:

• All of the differences were in the right direction. They could have gone in the opposite direction. Piscean factors could have indicated less of a tendency to drink.
• We have learned that rules 2 and 5 seem to contribute nothing to an astrological explanation of alcoholism. In science, a negative result is also informative.

If a person had all of factors 1, 3, and 4 in their chart we might conclude that they are at a higher risk of being an alcoholic.

2.8% alcoholics had all three factors in their charts vs. 1.8% in the control group. 34.6% of the alcoholics had two out of the three factors in their chart vs. 25.2% in the control group. This is a key point about AstroSignatures. Any one factor is not significant, but if we gather enough of them we might be able to get 60-70% accuracy in determining which charts belong to alcoholics. We certainly wouldn't want to get 90%-100% accuracy. That would say that one's chart almost dooms one to alcoholism. Two out of three factors isn't enough. Eight out of ten factors would be better.

Where do we find more factors to test? In the next three weeks, we will examine and test the received wisdom from astrologers of old that have compiled encyclopedias of behavior traits and their astrological corollaries. We are also looking to you, dear readers, for your experience of what factors predominate in the charts of alcoholics. Please write me with your suggestions and I will test them.

by Mark McDonough

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Alcoholic Chart Factors

You can use the comment field below to send us your suggestions for our AstroSignature for alcoholism. We'll publish your comments on our feedback page.

If you'd prefer, you can also e-mail Mark McDonough directly at Mark@AstroDatabank.com.

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Directions for Cutting the Alcoholic Group in Half

Select for Alcoholics:

1. Press the Filter button on the tool bar.
2. On the Birth tab, select Rodden Rating B or above and press Add.
3. On the Attributes tab, select Psychological, then Alcohol Abuse.

Cutting the Alcoholics in half:

1. Pull down the View menu and choose Birth view.
2. Sort the Birth view by date.
3. Type an "X" in the notes field of every other record.
4. Press the Filter button again, on the Birth tab type "X" in the Notes field and press Add.
5. Press OK.

Now you have half of the alcoholics with and even distribution of dates.

Go back to the study.

2/10/2000: