Donor Gives Pounds 500,000 to Fund Degrees in Astrology

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A MYSTERY benefactor is spending half a million pounds to make astrology respectable after 300 years in the academic wilderness.

The businesswoman, her identity known to only a handful of people, has set up a secretive trust fund to pay for the university study of star signs and planetary alignments.

The London-based Sophia Trust will reveal plans next week for Britain's first ever degree course in the subject. It is ploughing pounds 500,000 into a centre for astrological studies as well as other research projects around the country.

The identity of the university hosting the MA course remains secret but the trust already has one research project up and …