Astrology & Science

It is not unusual to hear someone ask if I really believe in astrology. It is interesting to note that astrology has been relegated to the domain of belief, of faith. In contrast it is assumed nowadays that science is known and factual. However, since a very small percentage of people actually do research or experiments, for most people, science and scientific findings are actually part of a belief system. Science has become a kind of religion and a very dogmatic one at that. People who question the dogma are quickly and often aggressively disposed of. This is especially true today of medicine and also of the starry heavens. What ever happened to keeping an open mind and the free exchange of ideas?


A new book has just been published that suggests that it is time to reconsider the prevailing views on astrology--Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas. Tarnas takes a broad historical perspective in his approach. He draws on the ideas of Carl Jung regarding synchronicity and archetypes. He suggests that astrological patterns are not concretely predictive but rather archetypally predictive.

The book reports on extensive research done by Tarnas on the changing position of the planets in relation to each other and he relates specific relationships to major events in history. An example is the connection of the planets Uranus and Pluto at the time of the French Revolution and during the 1960’s.

He quotes Johannes Kepler as having said in relation to astrological aspects: Experience, more than anything else, gives credibility to the effectiveness of aspects. This is so clear that it can be denied only by those who themselves have not tried them.







Technorati tags: astrology Cosmos and Psyche

More on Birth Chart Archetypes

Continuing with some ideas from Cosmic Aspects of Birth and Death by Gunther Wachsmuth:
The position of the planet Saturn is particularly important for science and philosophy in a person's birth chart, as is Jupiter for statesmanship and Mars for art. It is interesting to view this in relation to the four archetypes: Equalizing, Duality, Harmonizing and Polarizing that equate to the position of the Sun in spring, summer, autumn and winter respectively (see previous post on Birth Chart Archetypes for more on this.) We will take a look at three well-known Irish statesmen.

Eamon De Valera

Eamon De Valera's chart shows a people-person with four planets in Harmonizing but the planet Jupiter is in the Duality segment. This indicates that as a statesman his views would have tended towards the categorical and divisive-black and white with little or no grey areas.


Michael Collins

I had always thought of Michael Collins as the soldier and De Valera as the politician. Collins' birth chart however shows that he had good people skills with four planets in the Harmonizing segment. Saturn in the same area also shows a people philosophy. Jupiter on the opposite side in Equalizing would suggest that he had some ideas that he wanted to bring to manifestation in the world. Mars and Venus in Polarization would indicate some passion and polarity on a creative and personal level.

Gerry Adams

The chart of the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams shows very good people skills with five planets in the Harmonizing segment and his philosophy, as indicated by the planet Saturn, is in the same segment. However, as a statesman he continually finds himself in a polarized circumstance and this is indicated by the planet Jupiter. Even the Wikipedia article on the above link to his name has the following notice: The nutrality of this article is disputed.

Technorati Tags: Michael Collins Eamonn de Valera Gerry Adams Astrology Theosophy

A Vision - The Phases of the Moon

I have been working on the book A Vision about the phases of the moon by W.B.Yeats and his wife George. It describes 28 phases of the moon—one for each day of the moon cycle.

George was a member of the Golden Dawn. She was also an anthroposophist or a Steiner theosophist as they were called in those days. Four days after their wedding, George started to do automatic writing. It is said that she first did this to convince WB that, after so many years mooning over Maude Gonne, he did the right thing in marrying her. She was surprised however when, as she put herself into a kind of trance state, her pen took on a life of its own. Over a period of time, she worked on this together with her husband, he would pose questions and she would act as a kind of medium to provide the answers. Later she was able to answer the questions verbally rather than in writing. The result was an elaborate system involving the phases of the moon.

The premise is that an individuality progresses through the moon phases from one incarnation to the next. It is unclear though how Yeats calculated a person’s moon phase. One would assume that the phase would be determined by the moment of birth. This however does not work for several examples in the book. His examples for Phase 25 includes AE but if you look at AE's birth chart it shows him to be a Phase 6 and Martin Luther also shown as a Phase 25 was born at Phase 11. It is hard to believe that the Yeats would be mistaken about this but it is also hard to imagine how else to calculate the phase. I would be grateful for any comments on this.

I am preparing a database of well-known people showing the Moon Phase based on the birth chart. I don’t have enough data yet but there does seem to be a pattern. People with early moon phases seem to have certain freshness, people struggle at Phase 8 and by full-moon seem to really know how to function in the world. There is a struggle again at Phase 22 and a tendency to turn inward towards the final phases.

There is an extensive website on the subject put up by an advanced English studies professor in England.

There is an excellent poem called The Phases of the Moon that leads into the section on the The Great Wheel.

Technorati Tags: Yeats A Vision Moon Phase Astrology Theosophy

Birth Chart Archetypes

Last year I gave a talk at Camphill Greenacres in Dublin on "Birth Chart Archetypes-how four aspects of the zodiac manifest in well known personalities." This talk was repeated several times closer to home in County Kerry. I wanted to see if I could demonstrate that there are different influences emanating from the different regions of the heavens. I started with a premise taken from Cosmic Aspects of Birth and Death by Gunther Wachsmuth. He posits that there are four distinct sectors in the heavens more or less the regions occupied by the sun in the four seasons.

The four regions are as follows: "Equalizing" (world etheric) includes the constellations of Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries; "Duality" (world astral) includes Taurus and Gemini; "Harmonizing" (world ego) includes Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra and "Polarizing" (world physical) includes Scorpio and Sagittarius. If a person is born with four or more planets in one of these regions they generally manifest certain traits. Please note that the zodiac constellations and not the signs were used and I used only the old or classical planets: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

I use a good astrology software program called SolarFire. The birth charts shown below were made with this program that can show both the zodiac signs (inner circle) and constellations (outer circle.) For easier comparison, all charts were constructed with Aries on the ascendant.

I did a search in my working database that has about 3000 names of well-known personalities looking for people with at least four planets in one of the above-mentioned regions and came up with 20 to 25 names for each of the regions. I gave a brief description of the personality as their birth chart was shown.

Equalization: People born with a lot of planets in this region tend to have the ability to incarnate a lofty idea and put it into the world in a practical way. Einstein is our birth chart example.
Other examples of this region are:Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Rudolf Diesel, Isaac Newton and Antonio Vivaldi.



Duality: Those born with many planets in this region tend to have very definite views or sometimes extreme religious views and often will experience the world as duality. Franz Kafka is our birth chart example.
Other examples are: John Ashcroft, Jean-Paul Marat, Benito Mussolini, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Igor Stravinsky.

Harmonization: Those born with many planets in this region tend to be "people" people with the ability to work out of their own individuality into the social domain. Bill Clinton is our birth chart example.
Other examples of this region are: Arnold Schoenberg, Mohandas Gandhi, Bob Geldof, Prince Charles, Jack Straw and Mother Teresa.


Polarization:Those born with many planets in this region tend to be extreme and polar. Our example is Ella Young who took an extreme position during the Irish revolution together with her friend Maude Gonne. She was a writer of wonderful fairy tales and of old Irish sagas.
Other examples of this region are: Beethoven, Humphrey Bogart, Al Capone, General Custer, Howard Hughes and Richard Nixon.

My audiences generally found the presentation amusing at first but became more engrossed and intrigued as the archetypes began to emerge. They had many questions at the end and often asked me to display the chart of someone that they were interested in.

If you have an astrology database, do a search for one of the groups, imagine that you are having a party and invite only the people with at least four planets in one of the regions and see who shows up.

Technorati tags: Astrology Birth Charts Archetypes