Samuel Liddell (or Liddel) MacGregor Mathers (8 or 11 January 1854 – 5 or 20 November 1918), born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was a British occultist and member of the S.R.I.A.. He is primarily known as one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a ceremonial magic order of which offshoots still exist. He became so synonymous with the order that Golden Dawn scholar Israel Regardie observed in retrospect that "the Golden Dawn was MacGregor Mathers."
Brigitte Lahaie (born Brigitte Lucie Jeanine Van Meerhaeghe; 12 October 1955) is a French radio talk show host, mainstream film actress and former pornographic actress. She performed in erotic films from 1976 through 1980 and is a member of the XRCO Hall of Fame.
Richard Theodore Tarnas is a cultural historian and astrologer known for his books The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
Arthur Middleton Young (November 3, 1905 – May 30, 1995) was an American inventor, helicopter pioneer, armchair philosopher, astrologer, and author. Young was the designer of Bell Helicopter's first helicopter, the Model 30, and inventor of the stabilizer bar used on many of Bell's early helicopter designs. He founded the "Institute for the Study of Consciousness" in Berkeley in 1972. Young advocated process philosophy, an attempt to integrate the realm of human thought and experience with the realm of science so that the concept of universe is not limited to that which can be physically measured. Young's theory embraces evolution and the concept of the great chain of being. He has influenced such thinkers as Stanislav Grof and Laban Coblentz.
Shelley von Strunckel (born 15 July 1946) is a California-born sun sign astrologer with newspaper columns widely published in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Asia.After working in fashion merchandising in the USA, von Strunckel became a consulting astrologer. In 1992, the editor of The Sunday Times, Andrew Neil invited her to create the first ever astrological column in a British broadsheet newspaper. In addition to the Sunday Times, she has written columns for Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, the Gulf News, English, French and Chinese Vogue. and the Times of India. She also appeared on a special "Paranormal Edition" episode of the game show The Weakest Link, In which she was the 6th one voted off.
Carl Llewellyn Weschcke (September 10, 1930 – November 7, 2015) was an American publisher and the president/owner of Llewellyn Worldwide (formerly Llewellyn Publications) from 1961 until his death. He received nationwide media attention when he bought the supposedly haunted Summit Avenue Mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1964, and claimed to have "numerous odd experiences" there.
Born in St. Paul, Weschke bought Llewellyn Publications in early 1961 when he was president of Chester-Kent, Inc. In 1970, Weschcke opened the Gnostica Bookstore in Minneapolis, as well as the "Gnostica School for Self-Development", based on Gnostic teachings. He also began the Gnostic Aquarian Festivals in Minneapolis, also known as Gnosticon during the 1970s, which helped fuel the rise in awareness of occult and metaphysical teachings.
Weschcke was elected president of the NAACP's Minnesota branch in 1959 and vice president of the ACLU's Minnesota branch in 1965.
Carole A. Feuerman (born 1945) is an American sculptor and artist working in hyperrealism. Feuerman utilizes a variety of media including resin, marble, and bronze. She has been included in exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery; and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.
Alden Taylor (Tad) Mann, (born August 18, 1943, in Auburn, New York) is an American astrologer, writer, designer and artist who is known for his books and paintings on astrology and sacred architecture, human sexuality and gardens.
John Michael Erlewine (; born July 18, 1941) is an American musician, astrologer, photographer, TV host, publisher and Internet entrepreneur who founded the music online database site AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide) in 1991.
The Mars effect is a purported statistical correlation between athletic eminence and the position of the planet Mars relative to the horizon at time and place of birth. This controversial finding was first reported by the French psychologist and "neo-astrologer" Michel Gauquelin. In his book L'influence des astres ("The Influence of the Stars", 1955), Gauquelin suggested that a statistically significant number of sports champions were born just after the planet Mars rises or culminates. He also divided the plane of the ecliptic into twelve sectors, identifying two "key" sectors of statistical significance.
Gauquelin's work was accepted by the psychologist Hans Eysenck among others but later attempts to validate the data and replicate the effect have produced uneven results, chiefly owing to disagreements over the selection and analysis of the data set. Since the phenomenon in question depends upon the daily rotation of the Earth, the availability and accuracy of time and place of birth data is crucial to such studies, as is the criterion of "eminence". Later research claims to explain the Mars effect by selection bias, favouring champions who were born in a key sector of Mars and rejecting those who were not from the sample.