Looking for astrology study participants

[Sunsprawl]

Hello!
My name is Elizabeth, I am a student of Vedic Astrology finishing my first year of study. In order to receive the certificate, we must complete a study of a specific condition, illness, or population. I have chosen Asperger's or HFA because I have several people in my life with this condition and would like to analyze the correlations between experience, diagnosis and astrological indicators. I consider this a doorway to further study of more severe autistic disorders because I am very curious to see if they really occur on a "spectrum" as the current diagnostic criteria suggest. Is "Asperger's" really a form of "Autism"??

In order to maintain a control group at the start, I will need people with a medical diagnosis of Asperger's or HFA who also have a reliable birth time. If possible, I will also appreciate a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis; this can be in written or verbal form. If interested, I will share my findings at the end of the study. All personal, identifying data will remain strictly anonymous, although birth data not associated with a name may be shared for purposes of further study with colleagues within the same tradition of astrology.

If you are interested or intrigued, please get in touch and we can make arrangements privately. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Ken S.]

Not to sound rude but how is using a known pseudoscience as the foundation of a study going to give any valid results?

 

[Aspychata]

Exactly, l am struggling to see any correlation here. It's like are there connections between trolls and octopuses?

 

[Streetwise]

Hello!
My name is Elizabeth, I am a student of Vedic Astrology finishing my first year of study. In order to receive the certificate, we must complete a study of a specific condition, illness, or population. I have chosen Asperger's or HFA because I have several people in my life with this condition and would like to analyze the correlations between experience, diagnosis and astrological indicators. I consider this a doorway to further study of more severe autistic disorders because I am very curious to see if they really occur on a "spectrum" as the current diagnostic criteria suggest. Is "Asperger's" really a form of "Autism"??

In order to maintain a control group at the start, I will need people with a medical diagnosis of Asperger's or HFA who also have a reliable birth time. If possible, I will also appreciate a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis; this can be in written or verbal form. If interested, I will share my findings at the end of the study. All personal, identifying data will remain strictly anonymous, although birth data not associated with a name may be shared for purposes of further study with colleagues within the same tradition of astrology.

If you are interested or intrigued, please get in touch and we can make arrangements privately. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Think it would’ve been a good idea to find out the views of adult autists About astrology

 

[DuckRabbit]

Hello!
My name is Elizabeth, I am a student of Vedic Astrology finishing my first year of study. In order to receive the certificate, we must complete a study of a specific condition, illness, or population. I have chosen Asperger's or HFA because I have several people in my life with this condition and would like to analyze the correlations between experience, diagnosis and astrological indicators. I consider this a doorway to further study of more severe autistic disorders because I am very curious to see if they really occur on a "spectrum" as the current diagnostic criteria suggest. Is "Asperger's" really a form of "Autism"??

In order to maintain a control group at the start, I will need people with a medical diagnosis of Asperger's or HFA who also have a reliable birth time. If possible, I will also appreciate a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis; this can be in written or verbal form. If interested, I will share my findings at the end of the study. All personal, identifying data will remain strictly anonymous, although birth data not associated with a name may be shared for purposes of further study with colleagues within the same tradition of astrology.

If you are interested or intrigued, please get in touch and we can make arrangements privately. Any help is greatly appreciated!

A great research idea! This has long needed to be researched - although I suspect that the findings will be much like gene studies of particular disorders/abilities where so many different genes are involved (and portions of genes - like one side of an astrological aspect) that the patterns are barely discernible. I'd still like to see what patterns emerge though, however faint.

I have my own hypothesis that Sagittarius might loom large in ASC charts, as a dimension from which ASC individuals have had previous incarnations, following Edgar Cayce. This might account for the relative bluntness in ASC expression, the pursuit of truth at the expense of social-political considerations, and the quest to find underlying patterns. I'd be very interested to hear about your findings.

It's a slippery thing to study there because there is no telling which side of an astrological aspect a person will embrace and split off (project); that seems to be something that can only be read into the chart retrospectively, after something is known about the psyche or soul of the person.

What are your hypotheses about which planets, aspects or chart configurations are likely to appear?

 

[Raphael Outcast]

Not to sound rude but...

It would sound a tad less rude if you called astrology "a pursuit widely regarded as a pseudoscience", perhaps. We don't know it's a pseudoscience, we just know a lot of scientific types have condemned it as such without bothering to look into it properly (which is not very scientific of them, really, is it?!). But never mind, Ken, my friend: I'm not offended, and I imagine Elizabeth has heard the word "pseudoscience" a few times before!

Speaking for myself, I've had a lot more sense out of clairvoyants and tarot readers and astrologers than I've ever had from the mental health profession, when it came to living in my head and managing my condition. The only times a mental health professional, with his or her supposedly "scientific" qualifications, has ever told me anything useful, he or she was merely telling me the same thing a clairvoyant or a tarot reader or an astrologer had already told me years before—usually in a friendlier and less patronizing manner!

Also the mental health professional is less likely to make you a cup of tea and share a joint with you, and hug you at the end of the session. So I am not a big fan of science, to be honest.

My Star Chart says I'm not normal and can expect a tough and often lonely life. That would certainly be consistent with my Asperger's diagnosis, no?! And I've done a lot of Star Charts for a lot of other people, and no they don't tend to say that kind of thing about everyone (in case anyone was wondering). I've often wondered if there might be some kind of astrological indication for A.S.D. or indeed for mental disorder in general.

However, Elizabeth: a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis?! I've just written a 90,000-word novel which doesn't do full justice to this matter!! A novel no literary agent wants to take on, unfortunately...

So I would be interested in principle, but in practice these are deep waters, into which I would wade only after understanding the project a lot more closely.

 

[Sunsprawl]

Hello, thanks for the responses! I recognize that astrological inquiry is not a mainstream modality for research and the labels we give it will depend on each individual's paradigm. I am asking my paradigm to be indulged by potential skeptics in this group, and I see that there are individual's in this forum that are sympathetic to an astrological paradigm, in order to contribute to a methodology that I have found helpful precisely for offering a description of reality beyond the morass of scientific definitions. I think most people in this forum will understand the difficulty of creating a diagnostic framework for an experience that has not been correlated with a specific organic cause as of yet. I've found astrology to be incredibly helpful for describing these types of experiences. It's a different window looking into the structure of existence and a curious mind is always helpful when trying to understand the ambiguities of subjective experience.

I feel that the range of adult autists' opinions of astrology might be too broad to lump into a generalized group, although if I gauge by my 11 year old nephew's worldview, the scientific method in general is highly valued. I recognize that although in good faith, this is a risky shot into the dark. I promise I am not a troll nor an octopus.

 

[Streetwise]

Hello, thanks for the responses! I recognize that astrological inquiry is not a mainstream modality for research and the labels we give it will depend on each individual's paradigm. I am asking my paradigm to be indulged by potential skeptics in this group, and I see that there are individual's in this forum that are sympathetic to an astrological paradigm, in order to contribute to a methodology that I have found helpful precisely for offering a description of reality beyond the morass of scientific definitions. I think most people in this forum will understand the difficulty of creating a diagnostic framework for and experience that has not been correlated with a specific organic cause as of yet. I've found astrology to be incredibly helpful for describing these types of experiences. It's a different window looking into the structure of existence and a curious mind is always helpful when trying to understand the ambiguities of subjective experience.

I feel that the range of adult autists' opinions of astrology might be too broad to lump into a generalized group, although if I gauge by my 11 year old nephew's worldview, the scientific method in general is highly valued. I recognize that although in good faith, thisis a risky shot into the dark. I promise I am not a troll nor an octopus.

Shock horror I do not worship science, I didn’t think you were a troll and I couldn’t even understand why you would think you would be an octopus.

 

[Kalinychta]

It would sound a tad less rude if you called astrology "a pursuit widely regarded as a pseudoscience", perhaps. We don't know it's a pseudoscience, we just know a lot of scientific types have condemned it as such without bothering to look into it properly (which is not very scientific of them, really, is it?!). But never mind, Ken, my friend: I'm not offended, and I imagine Elizabeth has heard the word "pseudoscience" a few times before!

Speaking for myself, I've had a lot more sense out of clairvoyants and tarot readers and astrologers than I've ever had from the mental health profession, when it came to living in my head and managing my condition. The only times a mental health professional, with his or her supposedly "scientific" qualifications, has ever told me anything useful, he or she was merely telling me the same thing a clairvoyant or a tarot reader or an astrologer had already told me years before—usually in a friendlier and less patronizing manner!

Also the mental health professional is less likely to make you a cup of tea and share a joint with you, and hug you at the end of the session. So I am not a big fan of science, to be honest.

My Star Chart says I'm not normal and can expect a tough and often lonely life. That would certainly be consistent with my Asperger's diagnosis, no?! And I've done a lot of Star Charts for a lot of other people, and no they don't tend to say that kind of thing about everyone (in case anyone was wondering). I've often wondered if there might be some kind of astrological indication for A.S.D. or indeed for mental disorder in general.

However, Elizabeth: a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis?! I've just written a 90,000-word novel which doesn't do full justice to this matter!! A novel no literary agent wants to take on, unfortunately...

So I would be interested in principle, but in practice these are deep waters, into which I would wade only after understanding the project a lot more closely.

Very well said.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

Why, thank you!

Now: as to the matter of Elizabeth being an octopus—this is a question which must be urgently addressed; some kind of arm-and-leg-counting assessment exercise, possibly?!

 

[Sunsprawl]

A great research idea! This has long needed to be researched - although I suspect that the findings will be much like gene studies of particular disorders/abilities where so many different genes are involved (and portions of genes - like one side of an astrological aspect) that the patterns are barely discernible. I'd still like to see what patterns emerge though, however faint.

I have my own hypothesis that Sagittarius might loom large in ASC charts, as a dimension from which ASC individuals have had previous incarnations, following Edgar Cayce. This might account for the relative bluntness in ASC expression, the pursuit of truth at the expense of social-political considerations, and the quest to find underlying patterns. I'd be very interested to hear about your findings.

It's a slippery thing to study there because there is no telling which side of an astrological aspect a person will embrace and split off (project); that seems to be something that can only be read into the chart retrospectively, after something is known about the psyche or soul of the person.

What are you hypotheses about which planets, aspects or chart configurations are likely to appear?

Thank you for your response DuckRabbit!
In the Vedic system of astrology I've found a large number of tools that are helpful for looking at the depth and breadth of human experience, and the way the planets and their influence are defined is slightly different from the Western approach. I find it to be very precise. I am a first year student, so my primary goal is to create a hypothesis and then look for any similarities in ten different charts. If there are similarities, wonderful and if not, then I will need to redefine my research parameters. My current hypothesis involves afflictions to the ascendant as well as variations involving the Moon, Mercury and Mars. I am also going to study Jupiter because of its association with our ability to connect with other people. I am going to study the Lunar Mansions (Nakshatra) as part of my study of the Moon. I will look at the various divisional charts, which are fractals of the birth chart, especially the D-9 to look for innate gifts.

Your Sagittarius hypothesis is interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if the mutable signs aren't quite involved (ruled by Jupiter and Mercury).

 

[Raphael Outcast]

Um.

I vaguely was assuming something to do with Saturn, plus any Retrograde planets.

In my own case, also, among my "superpowers" appears to be some kind of affinity for children, which is amazing considering I'm supposed to lack empathy and be generally antisocial; but the Sun & Venus are both in my Fifth House, and hey presto I enjoyed some success as a schoolteacher, and even if I happen to be driving a school bus (something I very occasionally do; it gets me out of the house...) the children seem happy to see me, despite everyone else for miles around thinking I'm a scary weirdo.

However, if Elizabeth has identified the areas she's identified, I for one would be fascinated to learn more about the significance of those particular areas.

 

[Sunsprawl]

Very well said.

It would sound a tad less rude if you called astrology "a pursuit widely regarded as a pseudoscience", perhaps. We don't know it's a pseudoscience, we just know a lot of scientific types have condemned it as such without bothering to look into it properly (which is not very scientific of them, really, is it?!). But never mind, Ken, my friend: I'm not offended, and I imagine Elizabeth has heard the word "pseudoscience" a few times before!

Speaking for myself, I've had a lot more sense out of clairvoyants and tarot readers and astrologers than I've ever had from the mental health profession, when it came to living in my head and managing my condition. The only times a mental health professional, with his or her supposedly "scientific" qualifications, has ever told me anything useful, he or she was merely telling me the same thing a clairvoyant or a tarot reader or an astrologer had already told me years before—usually in a friendlier and less patronizing manner!

Also the mental health professional is less likely to make you a cup of tea and share a joint with you, and hug you at the end of the session. So I am not a big fan of science, to be honest.

My Star Chart says I'm not normal and can expect a tough and often lonely life. That would certainly be consistent with my Asperger's diagnosis, no?! And I've done a lot of Star Charts for a lot of other people, and no they don't tend to say that kind of thing about everyone (in case anyone was wondering). I've often wondered if there might be some kind of astrological indication for A.S.D. or indeed for mental disorder in general.

However, Elizabeth: a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis?! I've just written a 90,000-word novel which doesn't do full justice to this matter!! A novel no literary agent wants to take on, unfortunately...

So I would be interested in principle, but in practice these are deep waters, into which I would wade only after understanding the project a lot more closely.

Thank you so much for your openness and interest, Raphael Outcast!
I am delighted you have had a positive experience with the "woo woo" side of understanding reality, I count myself as one of the refugees of the medical paradigm.

I appreciate your concern about a "brief summary." A human life is infinite and I don't pretend to make an exhaustive study of each participant. I am most interested in getting a general feel for how this condition and its diagnostic check points manifest in the individual's life. I had an hour long phone conversation with the mother of a young child with an Asperger's diagnosis, but it could have been less. I am happy to compile a list of questions to offer a guide. Unless we were to do a full reading of the chart, I really don't need to go into depth, the depth we go into would depend on the interest and availability of each participant. Please let me know what else you would like to know.

 

[Sunsprawl]

Very well said.

It would sound a tad less rude if you called astrology "a pursuit widely regarded as a pseudoscience", perhaps. We don't know it's a pseudoscience, we just know a lot of scientific types have condemned it as such without bothering to look into it properly (which is not very scientific of them, really, is it?!). But never mind, Ken, my friend: I'm not offended, and I imagine Elizabeth has heard the word "pseudoscience" a few times before!

Speaking for myself, I've had a lot more sense out of clairvoyants and tarot readers and astrologers than I've ever had from the mental health profession, when it came to living in my head and managing my condition. The only times a mental health professional, with his or her supposedly "scientific" qualifications, has ever told me anything useful, he or she was merely telling me the same thing a clairvoyant or a tarot reader or an astrologer had already told me years before—usually in a friendlier and less patronizing manner!

Also the mental health professional is less likely to make you a cup of tea and share a joint with you, and hug you at the end of the session. So I am not a big fan of science, to be honest.

My Star Chart says I'm not normal and can expect a tough and often lonely life. That would certainly be consistent with my Asperger's diagnosis, no?! And I've done a lot of Star Charts for a lot of other people, and no they don't tend to say that kind of thing about everyone (in case anyone was wondering). I've often wondered if there might be some kind of astrological indication for A.S.D. or indeed for mental disorder in general.

However, Elizabeth: a brief summary of life experience and how life experience correlates with the diagnosis?! I've just written a 90,000-word novel which doesn't do full justice to this matter!! A novel no literary agent wants to take on, unfortunately...

So I would be interested in principle, but in practice these are deep waters, into which I would wade only after understanding the project a lot more closely.

Thank you so much for your openness and interest, Raphael Outcast!
I am delighted you have had a positive experience with the "woo woo" side of understanding reality, I count myself as one of the refugees of the medical paradigm.

I appreciate your concern about a "brief summary." A human life is infinite and I don't pretend to make an exhaustive study of each participant. I am most interested in getting a general feel for how this condition and its diagnostic check points manifest in the individual's life. I had an hour long phone conversation with the mother of a young child with an Asperger's diagnosis, but it could have been less. I am happy to compile a list of questions to offer a guide. Unless we were to do a full reading of the chart, I really don't need to go into depth, the depth we go into would depend on the interest and availability of each participant. Please let me know what else you would like to know.

 

[rubicks52]

Hello! I like thinking about study design, and I was wondering how you're planning to account for volunteer bias in your sample group? I'm worried that the only people who volunteer will be those who believe in astrology, and then it won't be a representative sample. In addition, by only studying officially diagnosed people, I'm wondering if that will bias your results by placing a higher emphasis on classically recognized autism traits. I've read some interesting studies where instead of requiring a formal diagnosis, the study authors used standard tests such as the autism quotient to determine who could participate. You might have thought of all of this already and just not included it in your short intro, so if that's the case, then I apologize for the redundancy.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

A full reading of the Chart would not be necessary, in that it's been done already!

I don't do telephones: it's an Asperger's thing.

But I am quite keen on depth (possibly I'm just a masochist, but there again this too could be an Asperger's foible, i.e. fanatically pursuing something to an obsessive extreme).

List of questions might be helpful and could save many many hours!

 

[DuckRabbit]

Thank you for your response DuckRabbit!
In the Vedic system of astrology I've found a large number of tools that are helpful for looking at the depth and breadth of human experience, and the way the planets and their influence are defined is slightly different from the Western approach. I find it to be very precise. I am a first year student, so my primary goal is to create a hypothesis and then look for any similarities in ten different charts. If there are similarities, wonderful and if not, then I will need to redefine my research parameters. My current hypothesis involves afflictions to the ascendant as well as variations involving the Moon, Mercury and Mars. I am also going to study Jupiter because of its association with our ability to connect with other people. I am going to study the Lunar Mansions (Nakshatra) as part of my study of the Moon. I will look at the various divisional charts, which are fractals of the birth chart, especially the D-9 to look for innate gifts.

Your Sagittarius hypothesis is interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if the mutable signs aren't quite involved (ruled by Jupiter and Mercury).

Do you think 10 charts will be enough? Maybe as a preliminary study, but ideally a huge database of hundreds or thousands of charts would be more useful. However I understand the inevitable resource constraints. Someone should start an ASC-Astrology database where diagnosed and self-diagnosed individuals upload their (verified) birth times and some demographic and life details - both quantitative and qualitative. Unfortunately you may only get those who are open-minded about astrology responding, so a biased, self-selected sample!

Jupiter rules Sagittarius so that would support my hypothesis. In astrology, there are four mutable signs: Gemini, also an air sign; Virgo, an earth sign; Sagittarius, a fire sign; and Pisces, a water sign. The term "mutable" is a quality assigned to a sign. There are three qualities, such as mutable, cardinal and fixed. Why then do you say you think the mutable signs *aren't* involved?

Your hypotheses sound interesting. You haven't said which directions they might go in so here are the questions that come to mind about them:

What would constitute afflictions to the Ascendant? How are you going to operationalise this? Square Saturn maybe or Opposition Uranus? Wouldn't NTs be just as likely to have these?

Moon = emotions, so what do you suppose is different about the emotional responses of ASC individuals? That they have less emotion following the stereotype that they are more logical, like robots?

Mercury = mind - are you hereby tapping into the systematising hypothesis about ASC minds? Surely not all ASC individuals view the world through the intellectual modality, even if they have to rely on logical faculties to take the place of the missing social-political circuits in the mind.

Mars = aggression. It would be interesting to know what your theory is about ASC individuals and their aggression.

Or have I simplified their symbolism here too much? I'm just keen to learn more!

 

[Raphael Outcast]

I was wondering how you're planning to account for volunteer bias in your sample group? I'm worried that the only people who volunteer will be those who believe in astrology, and then it won't be a representative sample. In addition, by only studying officially diagnosed people, I'm wondering if that will bias your results by placing a higher emphasis on classically recognized autism traits.

Now this is truly and respectably scientific thinking.

But Elizabeth is only trying to get a dissertation together, for purposes of her course: so long as she notes any inherent flaws in her data-gathering in the Introduction (or wherever), she'll be covered, no?

Do you think 10 charts will be enough?

For a world-changing blockbuster that would cause the likes of Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins to re-evaluate their entire philosophy, no; for Elizabeth's purposes, probably yes.

Go, Elizabeth, I say!

 

[Sunsprawl]

Um.

I vaguely was assuming something to do with Saturn, plus any Retrograde planets.

In my own case, also, among my "superpowers" appears to be some kind of affinity for children, which is amazing considering I'm supposed to lack empathy and be generally antisocial; but the Sun & Venus are both in my Fifth House, and hey presto I enjoyed some success as a schoolteacher, and even if I happen to be driving a school bus (something I very occasionally do; it gets me out of the house...) the children seem happy to see me, despite everyone else for miles around thinking I'm a scary weirdo.

However, if Elizabeth has identified the areas she's identified, I for one would be fascinated to learn more about the significance of those particular areas.

When I say "afflictions" to Moon, Mercury and Mars, one of those planets will definitely be Saturn; I am also going to look for combustion. I'm not hypothesizing retrograde planets, but I am going to have my antennae on alert for patterns in retrograde. I am starting with a very wide net. Venus and Mercury in the 5H is a wonderful combination, and it sounds like it's manifested beautifully in your life! It is interesting considering how Asperger's is generally defined. This would make a very interesting addition to the study!

In the Vedic system, the Moon is the kind of socialization we have and are capable of, as well as the primary symbol for the Mind. Mercury is the symbol for the cognitive process and communication styles. Mars is the symbol for will and focus as well as a general indication of the nervous system. I have my hypothesis, but I will be looking at many different layers of the chart to see where similarities emerge.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

I will be looking at many different layers of the chart to see where similarities emerge.

That will be very interesting to many of us, I think.