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for the week (all times GMT)A L M A N A C K

Extracted from AstroAmerica’s DailyEphemeris, 2000-2020. Buy.

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— Encyclopaedia of Psychological As-trology, by C.E. O. Carter. Buy.

ASTROASTROMEDMED

A to Z

FROM C.E.O. CARTER’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Vivian Robson’s

CASTOR alpha Geminorum 20 ß 26Notes: A binary star, bright white and pale white, situated on the head ofthe Northern Twin. It represents Castor, the mortal one of the twins,famous for his skill in taming and managing horses. Sometimes calledApollo, and symbolically named A Ruler Yet to Come.Influence: According to Ptolemy it is of the nature of Mercury. It gives distinction, a keenintellect, success in law and publishing, many travels, fondness for horses, sudden fameand honour but often followed by loss of fortune and disgrace, sickness, trouble andgreat affliction. Its natives are said to be mischievous and prone to violence.If rising: Blindness, bad eyes, injuries to the face, disgrace, stabs, wounds, imprisonment.With Sun: Prominence in occult matters, government work, dealing with foreign affairs,serious accidents, blows, stabs, shootings....

S T A R O F T H E W E E KIIIII O

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– From Fixed Stars, by Vivian Robson Buy

Mercury retrograde and past lives

WHEN Mercury is retrograde, asit is now, it is an ideal time toexplore your past lives. If you

have a reading with a psychic during Mer-cury retrograde, past lives are an excellentsubject, while, on the other hand, asking himabout your future during Mercury retrogradeis not likely to be as good.

Is this because Mercury rules time?Well, no, it does not. Saturn rules time, as isshown by one of his alter-egos, Chronos, asin chronometer or time-keeper. Mercury, asit happens, are the hands on that watch.When Mercury is retrograde, those handsmove backwards. As I constantly admon-ish, astrology is literal. We just have to realizethat and figure out ways to literally use it.

When Mercury is retrograde and Saturnis as well, then we truly have three weekswhen time, for all practical purposes, movesbackwards. Learn to use it.

I had been using periods of Mercury ret-rograde for some time in my own past lifestudies before one of my correspondentspointed it out to me. It made sense. Sincethen I have sometimes reminded myself tofocus upon that during retrogrades, andsometimes simply find myself doing it any-way, by accident.

Why would you or I be driven to study

one’s own past lives? Well, sorry to say, youwould have the interest if your most recentpast life (in particular, that one) happened toend unfortunately. You would want to knowwhy, you would want an explanation for whatwent wrong.

As for who and what you were at the endof your most recent past life, that’s easy. Goback to when you were five and seven yearsold. What kinds of thoughts were in the backof your head? Most likely those were thesame kinds of thoughts you were thinkingwhen you passed away previously. Like tak-ing a frozen steak out of the fridge and thaw-ing it. Your past life was frozen in time untilyou came back to thaw or “reanimate” it.

If you had a traumatic end to your last life,you likely compulsively relived it in childishnightmares, but even if the passing was se-rene, there are other clues. Were you, like me,a fussy eater as a child? That’s evidence ofdeath from food poisoning. Indeed, any child-ish likes and dislikes, as well as habits, are likelyto be carryovers from your most recent.Asthma, for example, can be the “memory” ofdeath from suffocation. With clues like these,you can begin your own study. In this particu-lar Mercury retrograde cycle, you have untilSaturday, July 20. There will be many more.

Mercury retrograde and past lives

W TACITURNITY. The fixed signsare the quietest, and they seldomspeak without definite purpose.

This applies above all to Scorpio, andMercury therein is very rarely loqua-cious. Cancer and Pisces people are of-ten retiring and shy among strangers.Saturn tends to silence, but Capricorn,despite a reputation for silence be-stowed upon it by medieval writers, isoften the reverse.Tact is commonest under Virgo, Libra,or Capricorn, and is rarest under the fi-ery signs and probably Pisces. Neptune,however, is often prominent in the horo-scopes of tactful people; if afflicted itmay betoken deception. Mars and Ura-nus badly placed tend to destroy dis-cretion and tact, or at all events sooneror later “give the game away” in somedirection unless other restraining influ-ences are strong. Examples: Marlbor-ough had Mercury conjunct Venus inGemini, opposition Neptune.

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Copyright © 2013 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

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THE Bible is Hebraic, therefore thework of the prophets who were as-trologers, and it has esoteric mean-

ing (that is, confidential & directed to theselect few who understand the occult or thesecret doctrine, or are illuminated by divineinspiration and intuition). To understandthe esoteric meaning involving Lillith & Evewe must recognize the allegorical handlingof the subject in the Book of Genesis, andspecifically the second chapter.

There, Eve also is personified as a satel-lite, a new moon emerging crescent & rib-shaped from the side of Adam, as the NewMoon emerges from the side of the Sun.She is symbolic of man’s better side, to in-crease & develop a better-than demoniacstrain, and in time outgrow or overcome theforces of evil inherent from Lilith. The over-coming must always be more against innerman than outer.

It was the famed astrologer Sepharialwho named the dark moon Lilith, beingversed in Hebraic literature wherein Lilith isalso called Lihah. He recognized her naturein charts as being the same as that of Samson’sDelilah, the temptress who is man’s betrayerbecause of his willing weakness.

It is twice written that IT IS NOT GOODTO BE ALONE (Genesis) and NO MAN ISSAFE WHO IS IN A HOUSE ALONE (theTalmud); and also the witticism attributedto Mark Twain, “I can resist anything – ex-cept temptation”. These are all darkly sug-gestive of the power of Lilith to ambush theunwary or weak, especially if she afflicts therising degree or the planet ruling the risingSign in the chart.

On Lilith

— The Dark MoonLilith, 1961. Buy.

On LilithT

What time does the day begin?

THE BEATLES, part 1

John Lennon, 1940-1980John Lennon, 1940-1980

JOHN LENNON was one of the best-known persons of the 20th century. Heis probably its best-known poet, for po-

etry was his specialty. He was certainly oneof the best known musicians and composers.

As his life has been exhaustively docu-mented I will not try and cover it here. In-stead, I am interested in using his chart andhis life to determine when the day begins.Did it begin at noon, or at midnight? Of courseI think that astrology will tell us which, sinceI think astrology will tell us virtually every-thing. We need only try. As we presume theday has always started at midnight, that iswhere we will start.

John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940,at 6:30 pm, which is to say, around sunset.This was from his memory. Which, it seems,was based on some document which he saw.

The resulting chart, shown at the top ofpg. 4, has Aries rising. The Sun and Mars areco-chart rulers, as both rule Aries. We findboth of them, along with the north node, de-bilitated in Libra in the 6th house. As thesixth house is employment and Libra a part-ner, we might surmise that Mr. Lennon workedas part of a team. We might also speculatethat with both the Sun and Mars both in Li-bra and the 6th, that he was not very good atbeing a team member, but, north node to hand,kept compulsively trying.

As the sixth house has Leo, ruled by theSun, on the cusp, with Virgo intercepted insideit, this house gets quite complex in a hurry.Aside from employment, there is a tendency topsychosomatic (as in, imaginary) illnesses, bothNeptune and Venus debilitated in Pisces the6th as well as intercepted and rootless and cutoff from free expression in it. You will say, Nep-tune in Virgo in the 6th, that’s drug use andthat’s John Lennon and you would be right butyou would be overlooking a critical detail.

Which is that Neptune and Venus inter-cepted, Lennon would be unaware of his owndependency upon drugs. He would be theten cups-of-coffee-a-day drinker who was un-aware he was hard-wired to caffeine, or the“social drinker” who is flat-out drunk by 8 ambut who excuses himself, or the smoker whosays he can quit at “any time,” etc. This isnot Lennon. He took drugs and knew that hedid so. Can we adjust the chart and get Virgo

on the cusp of the 6th? Yes we can, but wehave to add 20 minutes to the birth time andmake John a Taurus rising. Which brings thetriad of Saturn, Jupiter and Uranus in Taurusinto the foreground, which are hard andstressful, and makes Venus, in Virgo and the6th, the chart ruler. Which makes Lennon alazy (Taurus rising), frustrated (Saturn andJupiter visibly working against each other)druggie. He was anything but.

And, well, 6:50 pm is the earliest momentthat gets Virgo onto the 6th. He might havebeen born 15 or 20 minutes later still.

Lennon’s Moon in Aquarius and the 11th,Lennon is emotionally aloof (Aquarius) andlives for his friends. Who comes and go.Sun and Moon in trine by sign, these arefriends Lennon knows from work. Sun, Mars,the node all in the 6th, Lennon is happy to bean employee. He does not set out on his own,he does not know how, he would rather have asteady paycheck. This chart lacks angularity.Aside from unconscious drug use, is there any-thing here that resembles John Lennon?

SO why do we think the day alwaysstarted at midnight? Just because itdoes now and has seemed to do so for

our entire lives?There is no great aura attached to midnight.

One side of it looks pretty much like the other.10 pm on a winter’s night is identical to 2 am,or 4 am, for that matter. Midnight is just an-other undistinguished moment in time.

Noon, by contrast, has all manner of mark-ers and always has had. We start with antemeridian (am) and post meridian (pm). Thereis the noonday period, which starts some-time after 11 am and ends around 2 pm. Dur-ing which time virtually every human on theplanet tries to rest for a bit and grab a bite toeat. There is the noontime whistle or bell, acommon feature in many cities and towns,from the medieval period to this day. There ismorning sun and afternoon sun, two stronglydifferent phenomena.

And there is the sundial. In the morningthe shadow falls on its western side. In theafternoon, the shadow shifts to the east. It isclear, it is simple, it is effective, it is absoluteand for centuries it was used as the officialend of one day and the legal start to the next.For religious purposes people used sunrise

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This is a serialization of Vivian Robson’sA Student’s Text-Book of Astrology.

The Alphabetof Astrology

HSTUDENT’S CORNERH Like what you read? These are excerpts. Order complete books from:

The Alphabetof Astrology continued:—

THE circle of the heavens is dividedinto twelve segments by great circles,and these are known as the Mundane

Houses. For the sake of simplicity they maybe thought of as bounded by spokes pro-jected from the earth. The outer circle repre-sents the zodiac, and as the earth, with itsspokes, rotates, the points of the zodiac cutby each spoke, are continually changing,about one degree passing across the MCspoke every 4 minutes. Each of these housesrules certain departments of life and is knownby a number as shown in the diagram [lastweek]. The 1st, 10th, 7th and 4th houses aretermed angular or angles, and are of thegreatest strength and importance.

The 2nd, 11th, 8th and 5th are termed suc-ceedent and come next in importance.

The 3rd, 12th, 9th and 6th are termed ca-dent, and are the weakest.

In a purely general way planets in angleshave most influence on the external world,those in succeedent houses on the emotions,and those in cadent on the mind, but this is notexclusively so for all houses affect all states ofexistence, though to a different extent.

The begining point of each house iscalled the cusp, and is indicated in the dia-gram. The cusp is the strongest point of thehouse and planets on cusps are stronger andmore important than when they are well-withinthe house. Each house also has its orb, anda planet exerts an influence on a house whenoutside it but within 5O of its cusp. Frequentlysuch a position as this blends the influenceof both houses, and the planet has some ef-fect upon each.

THE BROTHER’SWEEKLY REMEDY

IN THIS space will be a serialization of AHealer’s Herbal, by Brother Aloysius,which I will have in print by the end of

the month. It is a book you should all have.Before I can start I must make a statement

concerning copyright. The first edition ofthis book, in Dutch, was in 1901, with a sec-ond edition in 1912, presumably publishedby the brother’s monastery itself. From thebiography here (poor Google translation fromDutch), I learn that Brother Aloysius died in1942, aged 88. When W.W. Schors claimedcopyright in 1979, the book had already beenin the public domain for decades. Such claims,while fake, are common.

Samuel Weiser claimed copyright on theEnglish translation, but, strangely, the authorof the Publisher’s Note, from a now-defunctherbal shop in New York, is missing. Weiseris unlikely to have the copyright, for severalreasons: 1. The cost of hiring a translatorand expert editors to prepare the book forEnglish publication is greatly beyond whatWeiser could hope to make by selling the bookitself. 2. Weisers presumably had no fluencyin Dutch and so would not have recognizedthe original for what it was. This is aside fromthe observation that Weisers was an occultpublisher, not known for an interest in eitherherbs or medicine.

Copyright to the English edition shouldbe the property of the woman who ownedthat herbal shop on Bleeker Street, as she wasclearly the driving force behind the book. Ifound her on Facebook and sent a message,but have not heard back. I will gladly pay herroyalties for what I sell, but this book is tooimportant to wait for her to respond. As theBrother said, the sick need comfort.

And now I see that I have run out of roomfor this week. Next week, Brother Aloysiuson Abscesses. I should have a price finalizedand will be taking orders. — Dave

GENERALLY speaking, the houseshave the same values from thephysiological standpoint as the cor-

responding signs, although certain diseasesare particularly connected with the former,and others with the latter. For example, men-tal deficiency and insanity are nearly, if notalways, shown by afflictions to the 3rd house,but not necessarily to Gemini, while pneumo-nia is normally shown by the sign Gemini,and not by the 3rd. Other diseases are par-ticularly planetary. Mercury is often wellplaced in maps of mental deficiency, but nearlyalways badly afflicted in insanity. In fact, eachdisease requires careful study, founded onthe examination of sufficiently numerous andreliable instances. Such investigation wouldadd greatly to our understanding both of dis-ease and Astrology.

Infant MortalityOne of the commonest features in the

maps of children dead or dying at birth is amalefic exactly on the 4th or 7th cusp in afflic-tion with a hylegiacal, but any affliction toone of these in or from any angle (even if noton the cusp) is highly critical unless power-ful benefic influences intervene. Even then,debilitated benefics (i.e., in fall or detriment,or retrograde) must not be relied upon.

Squares between the 10th and 12th or 4thand 6th are very bad, and, if in mutables, thechild will have difficulty in establishing res-piration.

All three hylegiacals in negative signsseem a common feature of such maps, al-though Leo often contains one of them.

It is a bad sign if the ruler of the 1st is af-flicted in the 8th, or vice versa, at least if it is amalefic, but this may by itself only show ill-health.

The Housesand Health

From The Principles of Astrology,by Charles E.O. Carter

The Housesand Health

G

— The Principles of Astrology, byCharles Carter. Buy

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WEEKLY REMEDY

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— A Student’s Text-Bookof Astrology, by Vivian Robson. Buy.

Copyright © 2013 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

John Lennon - officialOctober 9, 19406:30 pm BSTLiverpoolPlacidus housesMean node

John Lennon, per DaveOctober 10, 19406:10 am BSTLiverpoolPlacidus housesMean node

and sunset as the informal start and end ofthe day.

As did astrologers, for that matter, withtheir ascendants and descendants. Whereevery chart was different, every chart wascalculated by hand, one at a time. But thiswas individual. Planetary hours, based onsunrise, were not individual to people, butthey were individual to the exact day of theyear. Give that there are 365.25 days in a year,planetary hours repeat, exactly, every 1461days, or four years.

For the great mass of people, there wastime and that time needed to be uniform.Something which was based on an objectivestandard, was stable, and that we all agreedupon. And that was the sundial, which gaveus a definitive, stable time marker. Not onlywas noon the official start of the day, it isimpossible to think of any other realistic so-lution.

So if I am going to record an official timeand use a 24 hour clock to do it, I am going tobase that time upon a verifiable standard andI won’t use midnight. I will use noon. It is forthis reason that all the old birthtimes are, infact, suspect, and it is because of the sloppyhabit of converting 24 hour times into “am”and “pm.” It is compounded by the failure todistinguish between these records, and ac-tual memories, which will invariably be ofmorning or evening, daytime or night. WhenJohn Lennon said he remembered his time ofbirth, what was he remembering?

His father, Alfred, was not present at thebirth itself. His mother, Julia, died when hewas 17. Which is before he became famousand astrologers asked him for his birth par-ticulars. There seems no tradition in Lennon’sfamily of astrologers or tarot readers orwitches, etc.

So we have two possible charts in frontof us. One of them is going to produce achart that can be read to match the individualand the other will not. John Lennon, it seems,was remembering a document, a documentthat had a 24 hour-based time on it. Whilehe may not have presumed the day began atnoon or midnight, many others have, and havechosen midnight as their reference.

I am trying to determine where astrolo-gers got messed up in believing midnight tobe the beginning of the day. Certainly by1898 and Sepharial’s Manual of Astrologythings are presumed and unstated (whateverthey were), which does not help.

William Lilly, however, was definitive.From Christian Astrology, book 1, pg. 30:

For better understanding the truetime when the Moon comes to the As-

pect of any Planet, you are to observe,that all those that write Ephemerides,compute the motion of the Planets forthe noon time, or just at twelve: Andyou must know, we and they ever beginour day at Noon, and so reckon 24 hoursfrom the noon of one day to the noon ofthe next, and after this manner you mustreckon the Aspects.

But Lilly is primarily talking of horary as-trology. The horary astrologer sets a basicchart for the beginning of his working day andthen mechanically advances it as necessaryduring the day itself. He therefore not onlyneeded to know his reference point (noon, notmidnight) but had an easy way to get it, bymeans of his sundial and the year’s ephemeris,which was open in front of him. Ephemerides

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were expensive, you bought them for the cur-rent year only, one year at a time.

There are in fact routines that will let youapproximate planetary positions without a lotof fuss. Sepharial knew them. Vettius Valensexplicitly gives them, provided you know theunstated background which he presumes.(My thanks to James Holden for this.)

Up to the mid 19th century, timed natalcharts were rare and until Alan Leo in the 1890’s,natal charts were a special treat. Many coun-try people did not know their exact day of birthand I doubt anyone had the hour. Which bringsme to the Trutine of Hermes, one of a numberof early methods of rectification. Which hadto do with relating the number of degrees be-tween the natal Moon and a guesswork ascen-dant, and then relating that back to the date ofconception (more guesswork) and then mak-ing everything agree. Primary directions werebased on the result. Which is to say therewas a lot more calculation than I want tobother with, which is my loss.

Which is to say that reading a chart, as Ido, as Morin and Gerhard Houwing did, wasnot only rare, but also not well established.Even though astrology has a pedigree morethan 2000 years old, exploiting the houses asI do, using houses as a primary means of rec-tification, is still relatively new.

Two of the great fallacies of rectificationhave been mistaking the midheaven for the as-cendant, and mistaking the descendant for theascendant. Midheaven/ascendant mistakesare made when rectifying by accident, whichis to say, by transit or direction. Ascendent/descendant mistakes are made when rectify-ing by date of conception and lunar position.

The net result has been to suppress housesas being erratic. Which, when the angles areconfused, they are. Cyril Fagan’s sidereal as-trology is founded on this confusion, whichresulted in signs that have no astrological value,thus stripping his work of all but predictivevalue. Astrology is far more than that.

IT is my working theory that the shiftfrom the traditional noon start to the day,to the current midnight start, occurred,

unremarked, during World War II itself. Forthe sake of argument I am going to use thecharts of the Beatles, in chronological order,to prove my point. Starting with John’s:

In the September 18, 2012 newsletter, Iused John’s chart as part of a tour-de-forcesurvey of predicting life expectancy. And withJohn’s chart alone, I notably failed. The 6:30pm chart simply would not work. This is thedifference the past year has made. I now knowwhy. On to John’s alternative am chart:

If noon was the standard for 18:30 hours

on the birth certificate itself, then Lennon’sactual birth was at 6:30 am on October 10th.As that chart gives nearly 6 degrees of Librarising and as I very much want Lennon’s Mars,at 3 Libra, in the first house, I have changedthe time to give him a 6:10 am birth. At theWiki page I note he was born in a hospital. A20 minute difference in time, from standardclock error, coupled with vagaries of the birthitself, will account for the difference.

There are two other factors. One, havingbeen born in a hospital, it would have recordedthe time according to the law in force at thetime.

The second is more curious. At JohnLennon’s birth there was an air raid inprogress. German planes flying overhead.As they did almost every day that fall andthe next spring. Would these planes haveflown all day in the brilliant sunshine to getat their targets at dusk, running the risk ofbeing visually seen enroute, as well as theadditional risk their intended targets, fullyarmed and prepared, would slide into the dark-ness in front of them? Or would the Germanshave bombed at sunrise, having used dark-ness for cover and the morning sun to illumi-nate the targets once they got there? As wellas being a surprise to the sleeping populace?You decide. Yes I know the English had ra-dar, by that time the Germans knew, too, butin war you use every advantage, and the nightsky was one of them. What about their flightback to Germany? Less the weight of bombs,the Junkers flew much faster. They wouldneed to. As for Liverpool itself, Germanbombs destroyed virtually the entire city.

LIFE expectancy in the am chart: Ifwe make the Sun in the first houseHyleg, or the giver of life, then we

need to find some planet that rules 16 of Li-bra that is in aspect to it, to become the Alco-hoden, or giver of years. Our choices are:

Venus, ruler of the sign itself: In Virgo, inno aspect to the Sun.

Saturn, exalted in Libra: In Taurus, in noaspect to the Sun. (Ptolemaic aspects only.)

Jupiter is the term ruler (to 19): In Taurus,not in aspect.

Saturn is also the face ruler: No.For the heck of it, make the Sun the hyleg,

with Mars, in conjunction, the Alcohoden.Mars is debilitated in Libra, which is a form ofrulership. The orb of 14 degrees to the Sun iswide, but what do I know? Mars, angular, asalcohoden, gives 66 years, there are no ad-justments either way. No. Not right. So de-bilitated planets do not count, and the Sun inLennon’s chart is not hyleg.

If we make the Moon in Aquarius hyleg,

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Copyright © 2013 by David R. Roell. All rights reserved.

we immediately get Saturn, the ruler ofAquarius, as the alcohoden. Saturn in a suc-ceedent house gives 43½ years. ConjunctJupiter and sextile to Venus, we add another20, to get a life of 63½. No. Besides, I don’twant a hyleg that is below the horizon.

The ruler of the ascendant is Venus, butVenus is in a cadent house. No.

Next up, the Part of Fortune, which I findin Gemini in the 9th. The ruler is Mercury, inScorpio in the 2nd. It does not aspect Mars,but it does aspect the term ruler, Jupiter,which is opposite. Declare Mercury to bethe Hyleg, or giver of life, makes Jupiter theAlcohoden, or giver of years. In a succeedenthouse Jupiter gives 45½. Conjunct Saturn,it loses 30. Sextile to Venus, it gains back 8,for a net of 23½. Still no.

Declare Mars to be the hyleg. Venus, thesign ruler, Saturn the exalted planet as wellas the term ruler, are both not available. TheMoon as the ruler of the face is. Moon in asucceedent house gives 66½ years. Thesquare to Saturn takes away 30. The squareto Jupiter adds none, nor does the trine toMars subtract any, while Venus in Virgo doesnot assist. Which makes 36½ our final answer.Remember this is not the date of death, but themoment after which the first unfortunate direc-tion may carry the man away with it.

John Lennon was shot not quite twomonths after his 40th birthday. Work out hisprimary directions and you will probably zeroin on the date itself. We have used, not theSun, nor the Moon, not the ruler of the as-cendant nor the ruler of Fortuna as the hy-leg, but the rising planet itself. Which is asolid, traditional solution. My only hesitancywas picking from the available choices.Which in this case is that a rising planet out-weighs the ruler of the Part. As it should.

LENNON’s appearance is as a Librarising, with ruler Venus in Virgo as amodifying factor. He lacks the hand-

someness of, say, Bill Clinton, who had Librarising with Venus in Libra in the first, or ofJon Stewart, with Libra rising. In bothClinton’s and Lennon’s case, the presence ofMars in the ascendant does not seem to addany appreciable factor. An angular Mars issaid to be an indicator of Cesarian section, butI do not have confirmation of this in generaland do not know of Mr. Lennon in particular.

Adding 12 hours to Lennon’s birth time,to make it agree with standard practice at thetime (day starts at noon, not midnight) putsthe ruler of his 7th house in his first. Whenthe ruler of the 7th is in the first, you compul-sively drag your partner around with you, aswas the case with John Lennon and is the

case with Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.In every case, as the 7th house ruler will bedebilitated by definition, that partner will beseen as inferior to the native himself. It makesno difference if this is fair or not. It just is.

John Lennon had various partners in hislife. The two most notable were, of course,Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono.

Note that while Clinton and Lennon bothhave Libra rising and Mars in the first house,Lennon lacks Bill’s Venus in the first, havingthe Sun there instead. So instead of being anagreeable marshmallow, like Bill Clinton, thatRepublicans thought they could push about(Venus in the first), John Lennon chanted, “givepeace a chance” and fought against war. Whichis Mars, the planet of war, in Libra, the sign ofharmony and compromise, if not peace itself.

That his efforts were personal and ani-mated is shown by the Sun, backed up by thenode, in Libra and the first as well. That theywere largely futile is shown by Mars being inits detriment and the Sun in its fall. That hewas know for these efforts is because thesetwo planets were in his ascendant. Astrol-ogy is detail. Learn to extract and use it.

So let’s go back through our earlier analy-sis. Drugs: Pisces on the 6th house cusp,John will take anything and not care. Venus,exalted in Pisces but opposite, in Virgo, thesewould not be good for his heath, and werenot. Jupiter, ruler of Pisces in the third housefrom it, Lennon took drugs as part of his dailylife. Jupiter retrograde, he took far more thanhe should have, as, Jupiter retrograde, he wasnot paying attention. He thought he knew,but did not.

Sun and Moon still in trine, Lennon ex-presses his solar needs by means of creativ-ity, which is the Moon in the 5th. These ef-forts are intended for a mass audience, as theMoon is in Aquarius, the sign of the masses.At some point he gives up his creative life, orat the very least, it wanes for a time, as theMoon is a variable planet.

Moon opposite Pluto in 11, of groups, hekept a wary distance from the masses and, infact, said he expected to be murdered by aderanged fan. Which, as we know, he was.Leo in the 11th symbolizes the individual whocomes out of the crowd, Pluto makes him oneof a kind—and once in a lifetime, and trans-formative as well. Opposite the Moon, whichalways represents the physical body, we havean attack, most likely a fatal one. Moon inthe 5th means it would end an artistic careerthat millions (Moon in Aquarius) liked. AsPluto is ruled by the Sun and as the Sun wasin Lennon’s first, that shooting would be apublic shock. Which, again, it was.

Contrast to Bill Clinton’s unopposed Sunin Leo in the 11th. Whenever he–Leo–getsin front of a crowd–11th–he shines like theSun itself. Same sign, same house, differentplanet, different results. Would all those withMoon-Pluto oppositions from Aquarius toLeo risk Lennon’s fate?

Well, maybe, but it would depend on thenature of the houses in the polarity. One andseven, you might just kill your wife or be killedby her or be fearful of it or wish you would doit. Ten and four, daddy kills mummy or vice-versa. John Lennon’s fate was a rare out-come and is perhaps best not made into ageneral rule.

This, again, applies only when Pluto is inLeo, as Leo, uniquely, represents a self-pos-sessed individual. Virgo does not. Scorpiodoes not. Sagittarius does not. Capricorndoes not. Libra does, but it represents anindividual who is comparatively powerless.Distinctions, distinctions. Astrology is lit-eral. Learn to think through the details. Donot be crude and presume Moon-Pluto con-junctions, for example, always mean a diffi-cult mother. Take the time to work throughthe chart. It will tell you.

Always note the aspect between the Sunand Moon, as this is usually the primary as-pect in the entire chart. If that aspect is har-monious, Sun and Moon work hand in glove,as with Lennon, and often with great pur-pose. If it is discordant, then intellect andfeelings are at cross purposes, as they are inmy life, which may be a source of surprise andpower. If there is no aspect, then emotions andintellect do not know each other and the per-son is disjointed in fundamental ways.

THIS problem, of many births beingtwelve hours later than we expect, iswidespread. I would bring this up

with AstroDataBank but I find their site islargely closed to outsiders. ADB also fea-tures a chart style (the Huber) which is dis-tinctly difficult for a house-oriented astrolo-ger, such as myself, to read. I would like tosee them broaden their appeal.THE ROYALS

BY the end of this month a future kingor queen will have been born. Thedue date is July 13, which happens

to be the day on which Mars changes fromGemini to Cancer, where it will meet up withJupiter a few days later. This conjunction isalways present in a royal birth. I think birthwill be a few days later than the 13th, but wewill know soon. He or she will be a patriot, hewill defend his country with his life, if neces-sary. He will put an end to the current run offeckless monarchs.

LT

B