Gauquelin, Françoise Schneider (1929 )
Swiss astrologer and statistician, born in French-speaking
Switzerland. She attended the University of Paris, where she received
a degree in statistics. In Paris she met and married Michel
Gauquelin. While still in school, the two began to collect
birth dates of large groups of people to determine if there was
any relationship between the positions of the planets in the
solar system and such factors as a persons choice of profession.
In their search for correlations they concentrated on outstanding
professionalssports champions, army officers, scientists,
and so on. One of the first patterns they found was the
presence of the planet Mars at either the horizon or the midheaven
(two significant positions in the birth chart) at the time
of birth. The frequency of these occurrences far exceeded any
normal distribution due to chance alone and gave rise to the
name Mars effect denoting a significant correlation between
the position of the planets and professional achievement. Writers,
for example, had a significantly positioned Moon, and scientists
a significantly placed Saturn.
The Gauquelins findings began to appear in publications in
the 1960s. Michel published an initial book in 1967, The Cosmic
Clocks, and then through the 1970s more than 25 volumes of
statistical data were published by the couple from the Laboratoire
dEtude des Relations entre Rythmes Cosmiques et Psychophysiologiques,
which they had founded in Paris. Their collaboration,
however, as well as their marriage, came to an end
in the 1980s.
Gastromancy Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology 5th Ed.
622
Since that time Françoise has continued to write and publish
(Michel died in 1991). For a number of years she edited AstroPsychological
Problems (198288). Her 1982 Psychology of the
Planets emphasizes the agreement of her and Michels statistical
results and traditional astrology, the differences having been
emphasized in several of Michels writings.
Sources
Lewis, James L. The Astrology Encyclopedia. Detroit Gale Research,
1994.
Series A Professional Notabilities. 6 vols. Paris Laboratoire
dEtude des Relations entre Rythmes Cosmiques et Psychophysiologiques,
197071.
Series B Heredity Experiments. 6 vols. Paris Laboratoire
dEtude des Relations entre Rythmes Cosmiques et Psychophysiologiques,
197071.
Series C Psychological Monographs. 5 vols. Paris Laboratoire
dEtude des Relations entre Rythmes Cosmiques et Psychophysiologiques,
197277.
Series D Scientific Documents. 10 vols. Paris Laboratoire
dEtude des Relations entre Rythmes Cosmiques et Psychophysiologiques,
197682.
