From Abracadabra to Zombies | View All
Dr. Eugen Jonas
Eugen Jonas claims to have a patent pending on a single natural method which does each of the following:
- Allows seemingly infertile women to conceive.
- Allows couples to choose the gender of their children before they are conceived.
- Ensures women who have had nothing but miscarriages to deliver full-term babies.
- Eliminates birth defects and mental retardation.
- Ensures couples of safe, reliable birth control without pills, contraceptives or surgery.
Yes, one completely natural method, requiring no pills or surgery, that can prevent birth or can ensure that the seemingly infertile will give birth to a healthy child of whichever gender they choose. Sound too good to be true? What is this method?
Influenced by cosmobiology, Dr. Jonas's method includes a belief that
- The time of a woman's fertility depends on the recurrence of the angle of the sun and the moon that occurred at the woman's own birth.
- The sex of the child depends on the position of the moon at conception.
- Certain planetary configurations at the time of conception can effect the viability of the embryo.
Yes, a woman's fertility correlates exactly to the phase of the moon at the time of her own birth. If the moon was full when she was born, she will be fertile during the full moon. What astrological sign (Taurus, Leo, etc.) the moon is in at the time of conception determines the gender of the child. The health of the newborn depends upon conception taking place during one of the few "Good Vitality Days" of the year. These days are determined by astrological charts (cosmograms).
Jonas claims to have copious proof of these claims, but the evidence has not been published in any reputable scientific journal. He claims that the evidence shows that his method is "99% reliable." One must take his word for it, however. How could one doubt the word of a man who dedicated his method of birth control to the Virgin Mary on August 15, 1956? That was the year he was first inspired to this line of discovery when he read an ancient Assyrian/Babylonian fragment that stated: "A woman is fertile according to the moon."
It is not hard to understand how a Catholic physician would be interested in finding a better method of birth control than the so-called "rhythm method." But why he delved into astrology rather than biology is curious. The Catholic Church, from its beginnings, has opposed astrology.* And, while modern medicine certainly has its shortcomings, they pale in comparison with those of astrology. Furthermore, the rhythm method can be 87% (Calendar Rhythm/Ogino-Knaus) to 99.8% (Sympto-Thermal method) effective. All rhythm methods have two disadvantages: they are not 100% effective and they require a lot of abstinence. However, the only 100% effective methods of birth control are castration, removal of the ovaries, and total abstinence. Jonas's method requires substantial abstinence and is "new" only in the sense that he extends the abstinence period based on the phase of the moon and other irrelevant celestial factors.
Jonas was a Slovakian psychiatrist some forty years ago, but now this Catholic fertility astrologer works out of Australia, Miami, Japan, and Korea. At least he has mailing addresses in each of those places. He used to have clinics in the former Czechoslovakia and in Hungary. Now he has Internet sites in English, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, from which he sells his four cosmobiological charts.
The Contraception Chart is $88 Au ($58 US) but comes with no guarantee. [Note: all prices listed here are subject to change.] The Gender Selection Chart is $195 AU ($127 US) and comes with a money back guarantee, the details of which are not posted. The Infertility Chart is $257 AU ($168 US) and comes with an extra six months free service if it doesn't work within a year. The Healthy Child Chart is $232 AU ($152 US) and comes with no guarantee. Of course, he has a 50/50 chance of being right about gender and the odds are greatly in his favor that a child will be born healthy. In short, he is bound to have a good percentage of "successes" and the testimonials to go with them.
One reason for doubting that any of these charts will work is that there have been several studies that have looked for a significant correlation between phases of the moon and birthrate. All have come up barren. (See "Lunar phase and birth rate: A fifty-year critical review," by R. Martens, I. Kelly, and D. H. Saklofske, Psychological Reports, 63, 923-934, "Lunar phase and birthrate: An update," by I. Kelly and R. Martens, Psychological Reports, 75, 507-511). In 1991, Benski and Gerin reported that they had analyzed birthdays of 4,256 babies born in a clinic in France and "found them equally distributed throughout the synodic (phase) lunar cycle" (Kelly, et al. 1996, 19). In 1994, Italian researchers Periti and Biagiotti reported on their study of 7,842 spontaneous deliveries over a 5-year period at a clinic in Florence. They found "no relationship between moon phase and number of spontaneous deliveries" (Kelly, et al. 1996, 19).
For a medical doctor to claim that mental retardation and other birth defects are due to heavenly bodies is a sign of lunacy. What Jonas is selling is hope packaged in scientifically sounding mumbo-jumbo.
books and articles
Kelly, I.W., James Rotton, and Roger Culver. "The Moon was Full and Nothing Happened: A Review of Studies on the Moon and Human Behavior and Human Belief," in J. Nickell, B. Karr and T. Genoni, eds., The Outer Edge (Amherst, N.Y.: CSICOP, 1996). This is an updated version of an article which originally appeared in the Skeptical Inquirer Winter 1985-86 (vol. 10, no. 2) and was reprinted in The Hundredth Monkey and Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1991), pp. 222-234.
The Astrology of Fertility by Kathie Garcia
The Astrology of Healing by Dr. Ingrid Naiman
Your Lunar Fertile Cycle by Felicity Oswell
Last updated 19-Dec-2013