In 1988 Donald T. Regan, the former White House chief of staff, revealed that the lives of Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, and his wife Nancy Reagan were, at times, planned around the charts of a San Francisco astrologer named Joan Quigley.
Regan explained how "the President's schedule is the single most potent tool in the White House, because it determines what the most powerful man in the world is going to do and when he is going to do it. By humoring Mrs. Reagan, we gave her this tool - or, more correctly, gave it to an unknown woman in San Francisco who believed that the zodiac controls events and human behavior and that she could read the secrets of the future in the movements of the planets."
The most important effect of this revelation is the vast increase in the popularity of astrology. An indication of both the growing popularity and the increasing acceptance of astrology as a legitimate endeavor is shown by the number of articles appearing in magazines. A brief survey of titles of articles indicates that highly respected magazines cover the field of astrology not only for personal use but also for use in business:
New York Times: Picking Stocks by the Stars, 1994
Omni: Star-Struck Stocks, 1994
Business Week: When Scorpio Rises, Stocks Will Fall, 1993
Natural History: What's Your Sign?1993
Sky & Telescope: That Mysterious Zodiac, 1993
New Scientist: Hooked on Horoscopes, 1991
Newsweek: The Stargazers Strike Back, 1990
It would seem that, with the accelerating pace of changes encountered during the 1990's, more and more people are looking to the stars for guidance.
