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The astrology of the collective: group composite charts

The BeatlesAstrology tends to focus on the individual.  I look at my horoscope, and my star sign.  I don’t care too much about the group.  However, astrologers will often be asked about relationships, and this means they have to use synastry.  The main technique in synastry is comparing one person’s planets with another person’s.  For example, Prince Harry’s Saturn in Scorpio is square Meghan’s Sun in Leo. There are other techniques which allow you to create charts that describe the relationship as a whole.  The chart most commonly used is the composite, where one creates a new chart on the basis of the midpoints of each planet.  So if one person has their Sun at 0 degrees Cancer, and another has their Sun at 0 degrees Virgo, the composite Sun would be the midpoint, at 0 degrees Leo.  Unfortunately composite charts are fake, in the sense that they are creating a picture of the Cosmos that is constructed by the astrologer, and which never existed in real time.

This leads to a different type of chart, which describes a real time and a real place.  It is a chart that describes the relationship as whole.  Astrologers call this chart the Davison relationship chart, named after the astrologer Ronald Davison.  You calculate this chart by finding the midpoint between two birth dates, and the midpoint between the longitude and latitude of the two locations.  Meghan was born on August 4 1981, Harry on September 15 1984.  The midpoint of these two dates was February 24 1983.  When you take into account their times and places of birth, the time becomes 1.33 pm GMT, somewhere in the Western Atlantic:

Harry and Meghan Davison chart

I don’t want to spend too much time on this chart.  There is a strong Moon in Cancer, conjunct the lower meridian.  Regardless of what Harry and Meghan are like as individuals, the relationship itself is private and clannish.  The couple want to escape, into a familiar and comfortable environment.  It is also worth noting that there is a close conjunction between Jupiter and Uranus.  Freedom really is important to them!  Their wedding was on May 19 2018.  At this time, Jupiter was at around 17 degrees 1 minute Scorpio – in other words right on the chart descendant, at 16 degrees 23 Scorpio.  At the same time, the Moon was in the 23rd degree of Cancer – close to the relationship chart’s Moon-IC conjunction.

What about if you have got more than two people?   No problem.  You just find the average time of all the births, and the average longitudes and latitudes.  We can do this with the Beatles – a convient group, because we know the times for all members.  When we average out all their times, we get September 22 1941, at 6.56 a.m. GMT in Liverpool.  It is in Liverpool because this is where all four of them were born.

Here’s the chart:

Beatles' Davison chart

This is the horoscope of the Beatles as a collective.  The Sun is in Virgo, the Moon rising in Libra, Mercury making a close opposition aspect to Mars in Aries, Jupiter trining Mercury and sextiling Mars.  A lot of this makes sense.  The Moon rising is great for dealing with the public – the Beatles as a group were able to understand changing moods and changing fashions.  Mercury was trine Jupiter, which again makes sense – good for communication, particularly of an inspirational and spiritual natural.  However, the most important aspect is a close opposition between Mercury and Mars.  This gave the Beatles a verbal edge, but it was also about conflict and tension, which may not have always been apparent to the wider public.

We then have the question of when the Beatles died.  The chart of the Beatles represents the way in which four people can interact.  While those four people walked the earth, there was the possibility of interaction.  Even if they appeared to go their separate ways.  On December 8 1980 John Lennon was murdered.  This was the end of all possibilities regarding this mini collective.  On that day, Saturn was at 8 degrees 19 minutes Libra.  The ascendant of the Beatles’ chart was at 8 degrees 11 minutes Libra.  That, I would argue, is a powerful signature of a final ending, and a possible suggestion that we should take Davison relationship charts seriously.

There is no reason why we can’t create collective charts for larger groups of people.  Recently, I created a collective chart for all the passengers on the Titanic, that was set for May 21 1881.  I derived this chart from the passenger list, by taking an average of all the ages.  This is the chart, with only the planets from Jupiter onwards included:

Titanic collective

The chart is not very accurate, and may not be particularly meaningful.  However, it illustrates a philosophical and spiritual point.  The collective has a life of its own, that in theory can be described.  Right now, at this precise millisecond, there exists a horoscope based on the mean of the date, place and time of birth of everyone on the planet.  But it’s a horoscope that it changing all the time, which only God can see.

{ 8 comments… add one }
  • Ivelina March 31, 2020, 12:52 pm

    Hi, I’m writing to you about Harry and Megan’s horoscope on astrologer Ronald Davison.
    How you proceed
    first relocated Harry’s chart at GMT 0:00
    then relocated Megan’s chart at GMT 0:00
    And then you build the middle chart ?!
    I use ” zet geo pro’ program
    and when I make middle cards, that’s how I proceed
    Thank you so much for the effort to write here
    Ivelina Peneva
    Bulgaria

    • Archie Dunlop March 31, 2020, 1:37 pm

      What software are you using?

      • Ivelina April 1, 2020, 12:54 pm

        ZET GEO PRO

  • Bruce MacFinlay April 4, 2020, 3:04 pm

    Great insight! I have used the midpoint many times and have found it – right on the money. I was first intrigued with it, because of its certain intuitional logic, and it impressed me. Similar to Jim Lewiss’ Astro-Carto-Graphy which I also use with enthusiasm. I thought at first you were going to minimize Midpoint Astrology. Thanks again for an enlightening article.

    • Archie Dunlop April 4, 2020, 6:50 pm

      I regard ACG as rather hit and miss. At the moment I am living exactly on my Jupiter conjunction IC line. This is the first time I have lived in a country that I feel totally uncomfortable in.

  • Ian Delaney June 6, 2020, 12:45 pm

    I fully agree with your argument that the Davison chart needs to be taken more seriously.

    Having looked at this over the past few years, it has struck me that one fundamental question pertains to the methodology behind combined charts and that is, do we measure over time or space? From what I have seen it appears that the space composite as advocated by Robert Hand and John
    Townley is the technique most widely used, and that Ronald C. Davison’s method has tended to be largely overlooked.

    This has a parallel in the hotly disputed area of house division. Some like Campanus divide a spatial zone to demarcate the intermediate cusps, whereas others such as Koch, Placidus etc. utilise a plane of time instead. No-one has been able to answer why a temporal divide should be used over a spatially based, yet most astrologers are quite content to use time constructed house systems without question.

    As a rule, when looking at the combined charts of two persons I always consult both the space and time composite. One interesting thing I have noticed is that a conjunction of two planets in one system will often show up as an opposition in the other or vice versa. There seems to be a rather curious mirroring of planetary relationships when comparing charts by both systems.

    • Archie Dunlop June 7, 2020, 9:37 pm

      Thanks for the comment. I am not actually a fan of any kind of relationship chart, but the Davison chart makes more sense than the composite. It is a real event, rather than something contrived. The Davison chart also has a very nice way of dealing with the angles – just taking the midpoint of the longitude and latitude, and often ending up with a location somewhere in the mid-Atlantic.

      As for house systems, I am not particularly ideological about the subject. Placidus is what I got used to, though when I was studying at the Faculty they wanted you to use Equal House. I think that was something to do with Margaret Hone’s preferences. I am tempted to start playing with Witte’s six house systems, but I am yet to be convinced.

      • Ian Delaney June 14, 2020, 2:07 pm

        Just as an interesting follow up to my earlier comment, I was looking at a combined chart for myself and another person who I knew a number of years ago who now, quite frankly I cannot stand the sight and sound of. In our midpoint composite chart, we have two conjunctions. One of these is Sun/Moon and the other Mars/Saturn. The latter makes sense in so far as it symbolises “destructive energy” and I don’t think I could have remained connected to this person. The Sun-Moon one seemed a bit perplexing as I thought it would have indicated a good rapport and understanding.

        I have now looked at our charts again using Davison’s technique and notice two very interesting things. For starters, there is still a Mars-Saturn conjunction (same as the space composite) but this time the Sun and Moon are opposed! And this is using very close orbs (to within about 2-3°)

        Whilst it is difficult to be objective about one’s own chart, nevertheless the time (Davison) composite strikes me as more indicative of the tension that has arisen between myself and this person, and that the two of us seem pretty much at cross purposes.

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