October 2008 Archives

For an astrologer, it may seem odd that I am mostly against predictions.  I think astrology has enormous contributions to make to our understanding of mankind.  But predictions, whether good or bad, put us too much in our heads.  They create "presence deficits."  In doing that, they tend to remove us from making contribution to our own (or even another's) future.  That is never good.  It can even end up being downright harmful. 

Further, the predictor, no matter how good, can be wrong.  Astrological symbols have differing layers of meaning.  The astrologer may be stuck on the incorrect layer.  Life can be rich, but it is never rich enough to compensate for the error of a presumed future. 

Those are some of the negatives influences that come from predictions.  Below are some of the problems involved in predicting a presidential winner.

Unless it is a stunning victory, the winning presidential candidate, like the winning boxer in a highly publicized prize fight, is hard to identify.  All four of the individuals in these contests are engaged in a major social event with mixed "reviews."  Just by having arrived at the position to compete, they are already honored as "winners."  That means they will have strong "positive" (pleasant, easy) astrology showing it.  Too, each of the four is involved in a grueling, knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy.  That should and does produce some "negative" (painful, difficult) astrology.  Battles, whether physical or psychological, show up as mars and saturn, planets sponsoring difficult experiences.  But, so do losses.  And finally, each has millions of people for him as well as  against him.  With numbers like that, it would be incorrect to say even the loser was "unpopular."  Being simultaneously loved and hated publicly produces both kinds of astrology--positive and negative.  

So, winning the presidency (or a boxing bout) is not the same as winning the lottery, especially if the fight is close.  In the lottery, the winner has strong positive conditions in his 2^nd chart (money,)  7^th  chart (main chart of this method), and 8^th chart (shared assets).  He will not have very strong negative conditions.  If he did, he would not win the lottery.  Unlike the presidential candidate, the lottery winners personality and social image are not inherent parts of his contest.  Therefore he won't have astrology regarding them.  Whether he is liked or disliked is not an issue.

Of course, the chart of the astrologer also comes into play.  An astrologer (or psychic or businessman, for all that) with a strongly positive chart (to begin with and for the time of the event) is going to be correct even if he suspended his astrological principles while arriving at his conclusion.  It is just like Shakespeare wrote, "all the world's a stage and..."  If it is a stage, then each individual has a role.  And if each individual has a role, then anybody cannot be anything he wants or there would be no play. 

So much for predictions.  To compensate the reader, below I make a few comments, based on their astrology, of the personalities of Barack Obama and John McCain using their 7^th and 10^th charts.  Mostly we know each other through our 7^th charts, the chart of important others.  It is the chart that best describes our personality.  Our 10^th chart is the one that most reflects our public and social image as well as our career.  Both charts are active for individuals running for president.

The astrological source of Obama's very successful use of the word "change" comes from the following:  in his 10^th chart he has conception uranus at 1 Leo 01, birth uranus at 1 Leo 05, birth harmonic venus at 1 Leo 11, and birth North Node at 3 Leo 06.   These are in an out-of-sign square to conception mercury at 29 Libra 40.  Mercury/venus is the signature of poets, great speakers (like Martin Luther King, Jr.), and smooth talkers--the latter being the slant on it through which the opposition tried to hoist Obama on his own petard.  Mercury/uranus shows intellectual brilliance.  North Node/uranus highly favors (NN) his success (NN) with change (uranus), not just in talking about it.    

John McCain also has NN/uranus, but his is only in his 7^th chart.  In 7^th or 10^th, it means he has been able to successfully challenge Obama's sole ownership of the word "change."   That is, McCain is also a man successfully (NN) involved in promoting change (uranus).  McCain's NN/uranus is combined with mars, all in Sagittarius.  His "change" is more combative (mars), but also based on moral/ethical principles (Sagittarius).  Node/mars/uranus is also the signature of courage.  It often exists in the charts of adventurers and explorers.  On its lower end it suggests foolhardiness.  On its upper end, great daring.

In fact, McCain's 10^th chart shows an individual with potent astrological resources for transformations.  He has conception sun at 2 Scorpio 10, conception harmonic venus at 5 Scorpio 56, birth harmonic uranus at 7 Scorpio 40, conception jupiter at 8 Scorpio 24, and conception harmonic moon at 11 Scorpio 04.  This is a loose golden benefic in the sign of Scorpio, the sign of transformations.  It is very wide, therefore less effective (or, less automatic).  Still, this set promises unusual success getting people to agree, for instance, on both sides of the Senate floor.  Sun, moon, venus, and jupiter in Scorpio, even loosely connected, suggest a man gifted at being able to work people from the inside, where they live.

Obama has an interesting set in his 7^th chart only.  He has both harmonic suns in Aries conjunct harmonic mars in Aries.  On its lower end it represents an individual subject to rash or ill-considered behavior--acting without thinking.   On its higher end it represents an individual who can keep going even in the most dreadful circumstances.  Aries is about being.  So long as some part of him can be--especially involved in an aim--the rest of his life can be in shambles and he will have the wherewithal to continue.  It's a strength based on being able to continually re-focus around blocked avenues.

McCain has birth sun and conception moon in Leo.  Being fire signs, there is a lot of energy in both Aries and Leo.  Leo is the kingly sign which looks with great disfavor on small, petty, or mean behavior.  It would be a mistake to treat McCain shabbily.  He might not hit back, but he would eliminate the individual from his circle. 

One of McCain's negatives appears already handled, that is, by aging he has smoothed off its rough edges.  He has conception South Node in Gemini conjunct his birth Midheaven.  It's the astrological source of the reputation he had (or occasionally, sometimes has) for being immature, for instance, reports from fellow POW's that McCain was too much of a maverick, too combative.  South node conjunct an Ascendant or Midheaven takes a long time to live down.  For the most part, it functions throughout life.  For that reason, some of his behavior would more easily be labeled "immature" (Gemini).  Errors in that area would "stick" (South Node) to him.

I recently completed an Addendum to my first paper on autism.  The original, titled Developmental Astrology:  The Message in Autism, Five Autistic Children, was written in October of 2000.  It can be found at http://www.angelfire.com/sd/binah/autism1.html.  It contains descriptions of autism, identifies its astrological significators, and tells why they were chosen. 

The Addendum adds another 7 autistic children to the group. 

Here, following a brief discussion, I will cover just a little about what those papers reveal. 

All autistic children are not the same.  Some are fairly quiet and peaceful.  They are beautiful little non-communicating angels.  The terror of their beauty only shows itself when it becomes evident that they are toddlers who are not developing.  Some autistic children show considerable fear and anxiety.  Others demonstrate some really difficult and trying behavior.  Descriptions like this cover a wide range of behavioral forms.  Behaviorally, at least, it appears autistic children are children who may be autistic and most certainly are challenged in ways other than autism. 

For instance, some autistic children are actually diagnosed as autistic and schizophrenic.  Indeed, when it first started appearing as a disease, some professionals diagnosed autism as childhood schizophrenia. 

Autism, from my point of view, is not schizophrenia, not even childhood schizophrenia.  Schizophrenia is a distinct astrological disorder, specifically spelled out in my paper on that disorder (see Paranoid Schizophrenia and John Hinckley, Jr." on the Home Page, same site as above.).  Schizophrenic types of insanity were further sorted and elucidated in my Woolf paper (same site).  That paper included the astrology for insanity of four individuals--Virginia Woolf, Friedrich Nietzsche, Vincent Van Gogh, and Vaslav Nijinsky.  Each was examined for his predisposition to his disorder as well as its timing (when it occurred).

I have a relatively large file on schizophrenia.  Hinckley's schizophrenia, it turned out, was more an event than a condition.  Though it was somewhat implied, it did not exist in his birth chart.  It developed and was strongest at the time he tried to assassinate President Reagan.  Astrologically, Hinckley does not have a strong disposition toward schizophrenia--he was subject to it because he of his weak ego identity.

Schizophrenia involves the astrological indicators neptune (or Pisces) in the harmonic chart for the 3^rd house (representing the mind).  Paranoid schizophrenia involves neptune (or Pisces) plus mars.  Mars/neptune is always toxic to the subject area (chart) it modifies.  For instance, if it occurs forefront in a 5^th chart (sexuality), the subject can be sexually hyper-excitable, or may attract really odd (crazy) partners.  Or it can represent a sexually based cancer like cervical cancer.  In a 6^th chart (health and service), mars/neptune represents "crazy" (toxic) health conditions, cancer being one of them.  Cancer is "crazy" because with cancer the individual's cell physiology has gone "mad."

Present literature on autism also brings mental retardation into some definitions of autism.   My paper on mental retardation (see Mental Retardation and Astrology's Ancient Malefics, Mars and Saturn)  is also on the same site as noted above.  An autistic child could be mentally retarded.  A mentally retarded child might also be autistic.  Astrologically, however, the two conditions are separable and quite distinct.

Retardation involves the astrological indicators mars and saturn in the harmonic chart for the 3^rd house.

The children in the autistic group also share a common astrological pattern.  Each has saturn and pluto in the same set (aspect) and predominant in one or both of two charts, their harmonic charts for their 1^st and 3^rd houses. 

Their predominance in the 1^st chart in particular implies an influence that starts very early in life (chart for 1^st house).  Saturn/pluto there, as a set of specifications, "tells" the incarnating individual to turn around and remain at the threshold of incarnation, at saturn, at the place where the individual first splits off from soul in order to become a human being.  Having already started incarnating, he is then suspended between being a soul and being a human.  He does not identify with (or recognize) either world.

In his 3^rd chart his saturn/pluto influence is doing essentially the same thing.  Rather than it binding his early identity (as shown in the 1^st chart), saturn/pluto in his 3^rd are binding his thinking (chart for 3^rd house).  For humans in particular, our thinking is intricately involved in our identity.  Same result--he does not recognize either world.  Or rather, he recognizes only the most essential and abstract aspects (saturn) of this world.  Because pluto is involved he is quietly, deeply obsessed (pluto) with that "place."

To see what this influence does to individuals already grown, read the paper The Disappearing Priest: One Man's Odyssey, same site   (http://www.angelfire.com/sd/binah/hermit.html.  His saturn/pluto influence showed itself most strongly in his 7^th chart well after he had become a man.

With or without the diagnosis actually including it, autism, for some reason, suffers a frequent admixture of the other mental dysfunctions.  It is autism "with complications." It is hard to tell.  Are we truly in an epidemic of autism?  Or is autism (saturn/pluto) so dominant that it overshadows the less popular diagnoses?  We had schizophrenia and retardation--even manic depression--for a long time as single diagnoses.  Along came autism, and the diagnosis was no longer single.  Or, sometimes it was single, but it should have been multiple.

Their astrology shows that children diagnosed autistic often really are mentally challenged by other mental problems. 

Among this second group of seven autistic children, several showed schizoid tendencies (light/neptune/3^rd ) or paranoid schizoid tendencies (light/mars/neptune/3^rd).  One appeared retarded (light/mars/saturn/3^rd).   One had moon conjunct uranus in Pisces in the 3^rd chart representing a special form of mental problem for which I have no label.  Whoever diagnosed the child called it schizophrenia.  I see it as a psychosis, but not necessarily schizophrenia.  It earlier days it might have been called idiocy.

We can see the latter at work in the charts of Nietzsche and Nijinsky (paper cited above).  Their insanity occurred well into adulthood.  They did not just have schizophrenic episodes.  They went insane and stayed insane. 

Loosely, retardation represents choppy and painful, broken down, mind dysfunction; schizophrenia, toxic mind dysfunction; autism, obsession with pre-incarnational abstractness that precludes ego identification<b>;</b> and finally, moon/uranus/Pisces, an almost complete incapacity mentally to pull together any ego identity. 

From my point of view as an astrologer, one thing is becoming clear.  Whether it is prescriptive, or only tentatively prescriptive based on interaction with other factors like hereditary, soil, diet, or pollution, autism has distinct significators.  They are lighted saturn/pluto forefront in either the 1^st or 3^rd chart.  These are the significators all 12 autistic children shared.  So, astrologically, these two planets describe autism, and they also tend to prescribe it.  Why they describe it is covered in that first paper, link cited in the first paragraph of this blog.