Irishman, you’re right. I’m actually thinking about how it seems that the results of these very specific experiments are so often expanded in interpretation to suggest that the new and full moons do not affect us in any way, especially when they are considered collectively as providing a substantial amount of evidence contradicting the possibility of moon influences in our lives. So, what I should really be saying is that I don’t accept these past investigations as providing convincing evidence, individually or collectively, against moon influences because they were not designed in such a way that they could provide such evidence. Thanks for pointing that out so I could, hopefully, clarify.

What this means, it seems to me, is that most if not all studies that have been done to determine whether or not the full or new moons affect our behaviors are seriously flawed. The flaw is that some particular effect (crimes, births, ER visits, etc.) is chosen as the one to use, assuming it should apply universally to all people who are affected by the moon when, in fact, there seems to be no such easily defined universal effect. If an investigator’s assumptions are false, as I am suggesting they have been, the investigation is unlikely to yield the truth of the matter which, I am suggesting, is that the phases of the moon do affect us in ways that science has not yet recognized and substantiated.

In other words, I am skeptical of past investigations and their assumptions and methods because the scientists involved seem to have been unable to think outside the boxes they had put themselves into.

Your phrasing is rather accusatory. There is nothing wrong with the studies done, and the scientists were not unnecessarily boxing themselves in. The studies done were done in response to specific claims – claims that, for instance, people go crazy during full moons, there are more arrests, Emergency Rooms are busier, cops have stranger nights, etc. It is those claims that the tests were run to study. The tests were perfectly adequate to test those claims, and showed the claims false. It is unfair for you to state that the scientists are at fault for not anticipating your particular claim.

I realize my self observation does not constitute rigorous scientific study. Just the same, though, the evidence I’ve collected in the exercise just described and during my continuing observation over the years strongly suggests to me that there seems to be some truth to the idea that new and full moons can and do affect my/our behaviors and experiences of life. My “rating” of my journal data hardly provides anything worthy of in depth statistical analysis, yet I believe it would be worthwhile for someone with the time, money, abilities to perform rigorous research, and an open, inquisitive nature to do a proper study of this purported phenomenon. It would be worthwhile because it is, as I noted, a perennial question and, regardless of the outcome of such a study, it would help clarify the nature of our humanity and our relationship to aspects of our environment.

DJ, I’m glad you are so “highly amused” and thanks for your comments, too. I use the word “energy” because that’s exactly what seems to be affected, though I might more accurately state that this is directly related to one’s control over one’s energy. And I specifically used “energies” because it seems to me that it is worthwhile distinguishing between intellectual energy, emotional energy and physical energy even though they are aspects of one’s overall energy level. Regarding the other terms you mentioned, “life force” and “chi” are, in my mind, essentially equivalent to one’s overall energy, “attitudes” and “feelings” and “auras” are aspects and evidence of one’s behavior patterns and life experience, so they fit into the list of examples of things that need to be monitored to reveal any patterns that might occur. Rather than picking on particular vocabulary, it would be more productive for you to try to get a sense of what I’m attempting to say. In the realm of human behavior, unless one wants to stick with something like the DSM III, meanings of aren’t as easily definable as they are in realms such as physics or chemistry. I’m using the best words I can come up with to point at aspects of human experience in hopes that you’ll “get it” based on your own experience of life.

Regarding these energies involved, I did not and would not say that “science can’t yet observe or measure them” nor that any of this is “unknowable to science ” as you suggested. Instead, I’ll say that the scientific method has not yet been appropriately applied to study them, particularly in this context of investigating the possibilities of the moon’s influence on our lives. So far, studies have been made on the basis of erroneous assumptions and thus produced unreliable results. I am, in fact, advocating that there seems to be something here that is worth studying in a scientific manner and that is based on my assumption that this stuff actually is knowable by science if this question is approached in a truly scientific manner. In other words, I am skeptical of past investigations and their assumptions and methods because the scientists involved seem to have been unable to think outside the boxes they had put themselves into.

A study designed as I have suggested would clarify whether or not there are consistent fluctuations within the usual patterns of behavior for individuals that correlate to the changing phases of the moon. Data would have to be obtained in as objective a manner as possible, using standard scales for measuring physical pain and discomfort, as well as similar scales (are there already some or do they all need to be developed?) for rating aspects such as emotional and mental pain and discomfort, clarity of thought, ability to concentrate, feeling positive or negative (physically, emotionally, mentally), quality of relaxation and sleep, capacity to love. Of course these “objective” ratings would all be according to the test subjects’ subjective sense of themselves, but that’s actually part of what is being tested for. The test subjects would need to be unaware that their responses would later be analyzed to see if they correlate to new and full moons. Ideally, they would fill in responses on their data journal on a daily basis for a long time, which may be a real stretch for almost anyone. I think there may also be some possibilities for doing less complete data collection, such as analyzing patient treatment and condition records from health professionals such as physical and occupational therapists, or chiropractors. The main weakness here, though, is that people who are intellectually or emotionally oriented to life – presumably about two thirds of the population – would not be represented.

As an added observation, we are nearing a new moon and my cat is starting to behave in her usual way. She’s meowing and looking for attention a lot more than usual, and sitting in my lap right now. She’s wanting to go outside more than usual (which is seldom in her old age – now 13). She’ll also be up running around, playing and meowing at least a couple of time a night for the next three nights and then she’ll go back to being quiet all night until we get close to the full moon. I’ve been observing her do this for 13 years – lots of moon cycles – without fail. And also the other cats we’ve had over the years. Oh, and my back is feeling pretty tense today, although it’s mostly tired right now from a couple of hours of vigorous three on three volleyball this evening. It’s getting a bit harder for this old guy, but still lots of fun, and most weeks we have more people playing.

Thanks again to both of you for your considered and quite reasonable feedback.

There are a number of red flags that immediately set off my alarms when reading someone’s post.

First is when the author uses the term “energy” or “energies” in place of words like aura, lifeforce, attitude, feelings, chi, whatever. You know, instead of using the term “energy” in the proper manner. Using the term energy is just sciency enough to allow the author to make his or her dubious connections to electromagnetic field fluctuations or gamma ray bursts or whatever it takes to explain those mysterious back pains or mood swings.

The second is their assumption that certain energies, forces or effects are so subtle and complex that they work in ways as yet unknown to science. Science can’t yet observe or measure them. Oddly, this makes more sense to the credulous than simply assuming that the force or effect doesn’t actually exist. Instead they would rather assume a complex convoluted unobservable myriad of force interactions that somehow is unknowable to science, and try then to explain everyday random phenomena in terms of this force.

And the next step in this credulity parade is to claim that different subjects will all be affected by a phenomena in seemingly random disparate ways. For example, says Moonstruck, one person’s “energy” may be affected by the full moon negatively, while another’s may be affected positively. In other words, forget “controls” and “consistency”, lets just find a way to explain the amazing breadth and width of patterns of behaviors and health by assuming the affect is variable.

That’s not science, Moonstruck, it’s voodoo. Fung Shui. Magic. Whatever you want to call it.

I am highly amused. Thanks.

Let’s take your moon example. You say “the few days before, on the day of, and for a day or two after”. To take that literally, it would be 3 days before, the day of, and 2 days after. That is six days. Since you count both the high and low points of the cycle you must multiply this by two to get 12 days. In a roughly 30-day cycle, about 40%, nearly half, the days fall on one of the days you count as a “hit”. And did you stick to that time period exactly, or did you perhaps allow 3 days after, or 4 days before, or more? 3 days after or 4 days before bumps it up to 46%, both raises it to 53%. The temptation to extend the range a bit would certainly be there.

What is more, you said, “I had been keeping a journal for a little over three years and decided to go through it to see if there seemed to be any moon phase related patterns in my own life.” So you went in specifically looking for a match the the lunar cycle. You also, it would seem, were looking at a lunar calander as you went through your journal, were you not? That means you knew when you looked at a particular date whether it was as a day that matched your criteria or not. It is easy enough to interpret data from something very subjective like a journal to match your hypothesis.

Studies have been done that did exactly what you did, giving people journals and telling them what they were supposed to be looking for, that shows they tended to interpret the journal to match the phenomenon they are supposed to be looking for. It is extremely easy to do and very common.

What is more, there is nothing to go on but your own subjective interpretation of how they matched. You didn’t do any analysis to see whether there was any real correlation between your injuries and lunar cycles. People tend to remember the hits and either forget or downplay the misses in something like this, meaning a non-numerical analysis is meaningless, not that a numerical analysis on a subjective, non-double blind study like this would have any meaning either. This has also been established, people will grossly overstimate how well two things match if they are going in expecting them to match.

In the end the only way to really test your journal entries would be to take them out, assign each one a random number (keeping the connection between the dates and numbers elsewhere), randomly shuffle them, then have someone else numerically score them for the severity of pain and whether there was an obvious reason, connect the scores with the dates, then have a computer do a statistical analysis on the scores to see how well they correlate with lunar cycles, probably weighting the correlation sinusoidally for how close it is to a minimum or maximum (days that are closer to a minimum or maximum should be more likely to match than days that are farther).