"STARWOMAN" RETREATS

(Investigator 12, 1990 May)

Athena Starwoman, one of Australia's most famous and sought after astrologers, had a weekly full page astrology section in Adelaide's SUNDAY MAIL last year.

She included an ad offering her services for $70.

INVESTIGATOR's letter of complaint to the SUNDAY MAIL was neither published nor answered. Starwoman's full page, however, ended.

The timing was probably coincidental but it's nice to believe we may have been an influence for the public good.
 
 
 

1999 October 26 The Editor The Sunday Mail GPO Box 339 Adelaide 5001 Dear Sir, The full-page astrology ads in the SUNDAY MAIL for Athena Starwoman are outrageous. Ever since Johann Keppler (1571-1630) astronomers have regarded astrology as a superstition. In the book BIBLE MYTHS (1882) T W Doane calls the horoscope the "grossest superstition". THE MODERN WORLD ENCYCLOPAEDIA (1935) labels astrology a "pseudo science".  Carl Sagan in his book COSMOS explained that studies of the lives of twins refute astrology: "In careful tests they (astrologers) are unable to predict the character and future of people they know nothing about except their time and place of birth." Last June astrologer Joseph Meriwether was tested on the TV program EXPLORING PSYCHIC POWERS – and scored zero.  In INVESTIGATOR Magazine (1989 September) Adelaide astronomer Michael O'Leary wrote: "Astrology is pare idiocy." Code 10 of the MEDIA COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA says: "Advertisements shall not exploit the superstitious nor unduly play on fear." To request $70 for horoscopes that a computer with appropriate program works out in seconds seems to me to "exploit the superstitious". Even if newspaper editors must promote superstition for economic reasons they could still act responsibly by balancing this with a Skeptics Column.

 
 

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