Venus and Jupiter key to creativity

A PSYCHOLOGY lecturer's study of dyslexia among art students took a mystical turn when she offered to read students' horoscopes.

Amateur astrologer Beverley Steffert, of Birkbeck College, London, was studying art students at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design in an attempt to determine a link between dyslexia and creative ability when she turned to reading their stars to attract student volunteers.

This Sunday she will tell the Astrological Association Kepler Day International Research Conference how a comparison of birth times and dates has left her wondering whether the stars may indeed hold the answers.

She says a statistically significant number of the art students, compared with non-art students, were born in parts of the horoscope when Venus and Jupiter were strongly expressed.

"Venus is always associated with glamour and creative self-expression, and Jupiter with self-confidence. It is very interesting that both Jupiter and Venus seemed to be in the strongest part of the horoscope for these students. It's what an astrologer would have said. It's an interesting association," Ms Steffert said.

She will tell the conference that she "cannot see any reason" why the position of planets when someone is born and the associated magnetic influences on neurochemical functioning may not have an effect on individual's characteristics.