Judith Hill: putting astrology to the test

Medical astrologer Judith Hill, one of the few astrologers who set out to test her craft, on the Astro Detectives podcast: a skeptics' challenge, Mars and red hair, the 1989 earthquake, Kolisko's metals and Sun signs at work — checked against the odds and the record.

15 October 2026 17 min read ▶ 107-min video 34 sources · 7 peer-reviewed

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Bar chart of the chance of matching five charts to five people by luck — 1 in 120 for all five — beside the chance that one of several entrants scores perfectly, and the clues that could slip into such a test

In brief

Judith Hill is one of the few astrologers who set out to prove astrology rather than simply practise it, and she deserves credit for it: she studied red hair and Mars, earthquakes and Sun signs, and took a skeptics' challenge. On the record her results are hard to judge — the only trace of her perfect five-of-five test is her own biography, and her studies were either never published or never repeated by independent researchers. The best-controlled tests of chart matching have found astrologers at chance. Her rules for a fair test are good ones, and her hope of scoring 80% is a prediction that could be tested today.

1 in 120 the chance of matching five charts to five lives perfectly by luck alone The host's “8%” is the chance of getting exactly three right.

2.49 of 12 the average score of 152 astrologers picking a person's chart from five, where luck gives 2.4 Clearer Thinking, 2024. None scored above 5.

0.034 the average effect across 54 chart-matching studies, where 0 is luck and 1 is perfect

80% the score Judith Hill hopes she would reach matching pairs of people, where luck gives 50% A clear prediction — and a testable one.

Learn from the source

Judith Hill

Medical and vocational astrologer, herbalist and author of 14 books; founder of the Academy for Astrological Medicine.

She has practised astrology since she was 14 and medical astrology since 1983. Her Academy teaches all six branches of medical astrology, from surgery dates to herbs.

judithhillastrology.com ↗ academy4astrologicalmedicine.com ↗ Every summary of Judith Hill’s work →

Credit where it is due

An astrologer who tested astrology

Most astrologers never try to prove that astrology works. Judith Hill did. “Like you, Scott, I'm actually a bit of a skeptic,” she tells Astro Detectives, a podcast on which an astrologer, Sarah, tries to pick which of two charts belongs to a guest, in cases set by a skeptic, Scott. “I wanted to prove for myself that astrology worked, because it was my career.” From 1984 to 1996 she studied red hair and Mars, earthquakes, and Sun signs and careers, and she took a skeptics' challenge. She is frank about her field — “there's an awful lot of goofy stuff in astrology, I admit” — and says her teacher had her watch Judge Judy for a year and a half “to develop a mind like a scalpel”.

For members

Read the whole summary

8 sections, 4 diagrams, the video with its chapters, 22 claims checked against the research, 34 sources with the names of the people who did the work and links to it — and downloads in PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

🔒 Five charts, five lives
🔒 What the controlled tests show
🔒 Mars and the redheads
🔒 Astro-seismology and the 1989 quake
🔒 The metals and the planets
🔒 Sun signs at work
🔒 Learn from Judith Hill

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Judith Hill: putting astrology to the test

In brief

Learn from the source

An astrologer who tested astrology

Read the whole summary

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