I titled my book as The Chaotic World of Astrology. The "chaotic" trend accelerated in early 1980s with the emergence of comprehensive astrology software. They became a turning point for astrology in practice in that the cumbersome calculations to erecting astrology charts that took hours by hand, along with all sorts of tables and other tools, were now all taken over by software. Millions of casual astrologers in 1980s were now able, within minutes, to erect charts for any occasion, outlining the natal potentials of family and friends, predicting relationships and outcome of events. They became aware of the business potential of these software. Bored housewives and enterprising individuals purchased the software and began advertising in local papers, for $25 each, for natal, relationships, and predictive transit charts for anyone. The activity spread like a wildfire and enveloped the world. Astrology organizations such as the (oldest) American Federation of Astrologers (AFA) experienced an explosive growth in membership and certification fees. Everything connected to astrology became so lucrative that other organizations and book publishers specializing only in astrology and metaphysical topics emerged. Magazines such as Dell Horoscope, American Astrology and others flourished. Ads from book publishers, mineral collectors and everyone with metaphysical claims filled their pages. People selling minerals with various mental and physical cure claims joined the stampede. Astrology conventions filled the convention centers in Washington, D.C. and other big cities periodically, so people could get to know one another and market themselves and their wares. Unlike religions to which people adhered by faith alone, astrology offered something more concrete and more powerful: neatly tabulated data and colorful graphical charts together with the accompanying delineations of what this all meant. People could supposedly verify the predictions in their own lives. They believed they had on hand a blueprint from heavens, the key to unravel the mysteries of life. In contrast to general predictions in newspapers and magazines, that applied to all persons in the same sun sign, here the charts are done for YOU only. This was such a powerful stuff that people lost their common sense and started to believe and perpetuate all astrological claims as if they were receiving this insight directly from heavens. Astrologers felt themselves at the forefront of science. Of course, the majority of people were still nonbelievers, among them pragmatic people who dismissed astrology outright, and open-minded people who allowed some truth about astrology and accepted it as an entertaining social pastime without getting involved in the intricacies. These in the latter group were the potential customers whom the astrologers believed they could convert, so as to sell more charts, books and software. As far as pragmatic skeptics, their dismissal of astrology did not quite qualify them as "sensible," for many of these same people accepted and actively sought salvation from religion, arguably a much more consequential, and to some, a form of superstition. Be as it may, from 1986 to 1993, I was the only "astrologer" who knew the nitty-gritty of astrology and incessantly warned about its use, yes, while also making money from it to finance my time and effort. I present the material in this book in 5 parts: 1) a summary of controversial issues; 2) critical papers and studies, including a comprehensive review of dubious astrology tools, I performed and mailed-no email yet in those days-to astrologers worldwide, many of which I reduced to one-page monthly "warning" ads in "American Astrology" magazine; 3) applied (credible) astrology, 4) sample output of traditional astrological analyses, and my comments on them, by my own software AsterPro, and 5) suggested research reinforced by output from AsterPro.
About the Author: Sirman was introduced to astrology in the early 1970s by his ex-wife Gayle who casually followed astrological predictions. After playing around with traditional astrology informally for several years while he was employed, Sirman left California after 3 years there teaching part-time positions with several colleges, including the UCLA, UCSD, and the U.S. Navy, to start serious research in astrology by developing his own astrology research tool and software AsterPro. Because of his technical background, from the outset in 1986, Sirman wanted to test astrological predictions in a credible manner, focusing on many of the "if it sells, it is good astrology" methodologies that inundated the world of astrology in the 1980s and early 1990s. His software sales practically financed his time and effort of sharing his critical views with name astrologers around the world, and advertising the same views in the monthly "American Astrology" magazine, explaining why astrology, with its many unknowns and gray areas, at best qualified as a quasi-science, why certain techniques did not make sense. He quit astrology in 1992 and decided on a new project. After his parents sold their summer villa in Istanbul in 1993, Sirman and his 2 sisters decided to share them at their homes in Virginia and southern California. In 1995, Sirman decided to move to Miami Beach and purchased a water-front condo at Roney palace in South Beach, where his father (84) died in 1998. Sirman continued to travel worldwide when his parents were with his sisters, which, by 2006, took him to 316 places in 130 countries. 15,000 photos from these trips and his family history are posted at http: //sirman.net, also available in Photos and Albums of Facebook under Sirman Celayir. He moved to Fernandina, FL, also to make room for his recently-divorced daughter. His mother died in Fernandina at age 97 in 2014, a few days after she held in her hands the first print copy of 600+ pages of Sirman's book of family history Celayirs, Diary of an Immigrant Family, also available from Amazon. As she had always preached "life is all those things that happen to you when you were planning other things," instead of taking off to parts unknown, as Sirman had planned, he became a nurse to his daughter, after her car accident on Jan. 1, 2015 in which she broke her hip and several bones and was waiting for her hip replacement in 2016. He completed this book while he was so preoccupied.