The Effect of Planets
in
their own Signs
Ken Gillman
From 1705 to 1992 there were
sixty-eight General Elections in Britain. In forty of them the defending
government won the election and so retained power.
While constructing a
multivariate model using only astrological factors to explain the results of
these parliamentary elections, I observed the following significant result that
involves the presence of the seven classical bodies (Sun to Saturn) in the
signs of the Zodiac they traditionally rule:
|
Planets in their own Signs |
Elections |
How the incumbent fared |
Chi-Square |
||
|
Number |
% |
Won |
Lost |
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0 |
23 |
33.8 |
8 |
15 |
5.48 |
|
1 |
25 |
36.8 |
15 |
10 |
0.01 |
|
2 |
16 |
23.5 |
13 |
3 |
3.32 |
|
3 + |
4 |
5.9 |
4 |
0 |
2.80 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
68 |
100.0 |
40 |
28 |
11.62 |
|
|
|
|
58.8% |
41.2% |
|
With 3 degrees of freedom, the total Chi-square value of 11.62 is significant at the 1% level
– that is, the odds that this distribution of results came about simply by chance are greater than 99-to-1, against.
In all the sixty-eight
elections, the incumbent party was re-elected on forty occasions, 58.8% of the
time. Unlike
the U.S. where Presidential elections occur on specified dates, a parliamentary
General Election can occur at any time within a determined period on the whim
of the sitting Prime Minister. There is
obviously a great advantage in being able to decide when to call an election,
and so ensure the best possible chance of retaining power.
Even so, a third of these
elections occurred at times when no planets were located in their own signs,
and on these occasions the incumbent party was victorious only eight times and
lost fifteen of these elections; a 34.8 winning percentage against the expected
58.8%.
By contrast, in the twenty
elections that were held on days when two or more planets were in their own
signs, the incumbent party was victorious on seventeen occasions, losing just
three times; an 85% win rate against the expected 58.8%.
And in the four elections
that occurred when three or more planets were located in the signs they
traditionally rule, the incumbent party won every time. Obviously the sitting
prime minister should always call an election for a day when this occurs.
When
the more recently discovered planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, replace
Saturn, Jupiter and Mars as the rulers of Aquarius, Pisces and Scorpio
respectively, the value of this indicator disappears. It then has no
significance.
I
have not previously seen any research that confirms the value of planets in
their own Signs. Here it makes sense: the more planets positioned in the Signs
they traditionally rule, the more likely it is that the status quo will
be maintained, that the party in power will continue to hold office.
In
each instance, the planetary positions used here come from charts erected for
sunrise on the day of the General Election at Westminster, the location of the
government.
It
should be noted that while this variable is powerful and statistically
significant, it was neither the strongest used in the final multivariate model,
nor the initial variable to enter the stepwise solution – that is, it did not
have the highest correlation with the dependent variable.
The
strongest explanatory variable was an aspect involving the Moon and Saturn: the
incumbents were maintained in office in twenty of the twenty-one elections that
occurred (95.2% of the time) on days when these two bodies were either conjunct
or trine, each within a 10-degree orb, at sunrise on election day. The final
explanatory model contains ten such variables.
(Data from the
Librarian of the Houses of Parliament, via the kind efforts of Kevin Hawley.)