Dr Barbara Dunn
Principal QHP
BA (Hons), MA, PHD, D F ASTROL S, FAPAI
I was formerly an undergraduate and postgraduate at the London School of Economics, awarded a scholarship from the Social Science Research Council. I subsequently undertook independent research into classical, Arabic and mediaeval astrological knowledge/practice, whilst pursuing a career as a freelance astrological consultant/columnist for UK/European publications, such as the Sunday Mirror, Woman’s Own and Cosmopolitan. I received the Diploma from the Faculty of Astrological Studies in 1988 and the Qualifying Horary Practitioner in 1990. I was later appointed QHP Head Tutor, teaching and mentoring students world-wide. Olivia Barclay bequeathed the QHP to me in 2001. An acknowledged expert in the judgement of interrogations (horary), I was awarded a grant from the Urania Trust for writing Horary Astrology Re-Examined: The Possibility or Impossibility of the Matter Propounded, published in 2009. A further grant was awarded in 2014 for studying an MA in History at Exeter University, where I graduated with distinction in 2016.
In 2016 I was awarded a doctoral studentship from the Wellcome Trust to pursue a PhD in the History of Medicine, more specifically to examine the use of astrology in seventeenth century medical matters. I completed my thesis in 2021.
Barbara has been a contributor to the Astrological Association Journal, the Astrology Quarterly, the Urania Trust website, Watkins Review, as well as a range of national and international newspapers and magazines.
PublicationsLife Love and Destiny (London, Penguin 1994)Sex Stars and Seduction (London, Penguin 1996)How to Predict Events and Outcomes (Marie Izumi, Tokyo, 2000)Horary Astrology Re-Examined: The Possibility or Impossibility of the Matter Propounded (Wessex, 2009)Recent Presentations and Papers:Plenary SpeakerAstrological Association Conference, Diamond Anniversary, Reading (June 2018): 'Physick cannot well exist without Astrology, but Astrology can without Physick': Practice-Books, Practices and Practitioners c. 1658-1700Astrological Association Conference, St Neots (September 2017): Textbooks, Practice-Books and Almanacs: Astrology and the ‘Prognostical Part of Physick’ c. 1580-1700.University of Exeter, International Medical Conference (September 2017): ‘The Judgment of Physick by Astrology’: Interrogating Practices, Practitioners and Public Persona c. 1580-1700.University of Exeter, Medical Humanities PGR Conference (June 2017): ‘Physicions that are Ignorant in Astrologie are worse then Spiculators and menslayers for that they know not things necessarie belonging unto physic’: The Astrological Figure and Medicine in Early Modern England.University of Exeter, PGR Humanities Conference (June 2017): ‘There is nothing appertaining to the life of man in this world, which hath not relation to one of the twelve houses of heaven’: Fortune and the Astrological Figure in Early Modern England.Astrological Lodge of London (April 2017): Simon Forman and the ‘Prognostical Part of Physick’ c. 1580-1700.