The New Astrology

by Kenneth Irving

Appeared October, 2000, in his column in American Astrology.

Lois Rodden’s name is synonymous with good data in the astrological world, and for good reason. Over many years, Lois, who many may know through her Data News, has worked assiduously to track down data at its source and to verify it and document it. Many old standard birth times have fallen as a result of her careful research, often to be replaced by a "dirty data" notation in the files or, better, a brand new time from reliable sources. Many books and software packages have adopted the "Rodden Rating System" as a handy way of identifying quickly where a piece of data comes from and how much it can be trusted. If nothing else, Lois has made everyone in the astrological world keenly aware of the necessity for checking up on all the details of any piece of data. 

Lois is not the only data hunter around, but she certainly is the best, not only because of her own work, but because of her reputation. Many who come up with a hot data item will take it straight to Lois, and we also suspect she has a network of data spies who help her ferret out data in some situations where it might otherwise be unavailable (e.g., states that severely restrict access to birth certificates). However she does it, the key is hard work and adhering to standards, and the result is a massive collection of the most carefully checked and reliable data in the world. It is perhaps second only to the Gauquelin collection, though any ranking depends on which numbers one thinks are most important. In the end, it doesn’t matter, as good data is good data. 

Some of Lois's collection has gone into several nice chart books over the years, each of which has the chart and its rating and data source along with an interesting and highly readable bio. My own favorite is Astro Data V: Profiles on Crime. This is not only because of my interest in some of the subjects, but also because she lays out the details of their crimes in unsqueamish detail, which is necessary and helpful for using the collection for meaningful research. Chart books are nice, of course, but in a computerized world, the natural next step was to make it available in a computerized form. This has in fact been done, and by the same man also responsible for Lois’s web site. We will tell you something about the software in a future column, but you can get an introduction to Rodden’s work online – and to the computerized data collection – at the site itself, www.astrodatabank.com. 

This is truly a wonderful site for browsing and reading and learning. At the top of the first page you’ll always find data about someone currently in the news. On the visit I made while doing this column, for example, Barbara Cartland was featured. This highly prolific writer of romance novels and other fiction died recently at age 98, and clicking on the link in the “newsmaker” box takes you to a page which gives you her chart, data, Rodden rating and data source, along with an extensive biography. Though Cartland will not be the main feature by the time AA readers see this, not to worry, as links to past newsmakers are provided. In the newsmaker box on the front page, by the way, there’s a notation that you can have info on the current newsmaker emailed to you. I haven’t tried this myself as yet. 

The data and biographies would be enough to make this a great web site, but the material relating to the Rodden database itself, and its use as a research tool, gives the site even more depth. The AstroDatabank CD is in fact geared toward use as a research tool, though you can just look up charts in it if you like. You will find a number of examples of that type of research on the site, through links from the front page. Though they are examples of what the software can do, they are useful reading even if you never actually obtain the Rodden database. 

Among the articles on the site at the time I visited were one on Venus-Neptune aspects by Donna Cunningham, an excerpt from Sara Klein Ridgley’s Ph.D. thesis on astrology and work-related injuries, a lecture transcript of Mark McDonough speaking on the basics of doing astrological research, and a Ken Gillman piece in which he considers the astrological differences between children who survived a schoolyard shooting and those who didn’t. Each of these was well-written and helpful, and I think most readers who have ever thumbed through a chart collection looking for patterns would benefit from them. 

There is quite a bit more here, and you could easily spend several hours a week browsing this site and still not get to everything. Those who come here expecting to find all of the Rodden Data online and free for the looking will be disappointed (you do have to buy the collection for that), but there is so much here, and most of it so timely, that the disappointment shouldn’t last long. One more thing to mention is an interesting front-page feature listing Lois's "ten most wanted" list, including celebrities and newsmakers whose correct data is unavailable, unknown, or is "dirty" (i.e., widely varying birth times have been given by various sources). Those on the list are Madeleine Albright, Lance Armstrong, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Placido Domingo, Ruth Ginsburg, Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Janet Reno, Anne Rice, Laura Schlessinger, and Howard Stern. If you have good data of any of these folks, go to the site and drop Lois or Mark McDonough a line.

Review reprinted with permission from Kenneth Irving.

"This is truly a wonderful site for browsing and reading and learning."