Astrology, Prediction and Comment

Hey, Americans, Donald Trump is your President.  YOUR president.  It doesn’t matter if you didn’t elect him, he is still your President.  At least that’s what I tell my American family.  For myself, I am only a green card holder.  I am an observer of the unfolding tragedy and farce, not part of the great American collective.  That collective chose Donald Trump as its leader in 2016.  It doesn’t matter that Hillary won more votes than him.  From a Rousseauian perspective, his election was the general will of the American people.  And from Trump’s perspective, anyone who opposes him is an enemy of the people, along with the Lügenpresse and its fake news.  From a medieval perspective, Trump is the State, Trump is America.  This means that if we want to understand America, we need to look at the horoscope of its leader:

Now an important technique in astrology is the lunar return.  This means that you set up a horoscope for the moment the Moon returns to the place it was at birth.  There are different ways of calculating this chart, but I prefer to use a tropical chart, based on the place of birth.  According to the theory of lunar returns, the chart will describe the following month, until the next return.

Trump’s Moon is at 21 degrees 12 minutes Sagittarius.  The Moon returned to that exact place on February 17 2020, at 1.20 pm, New York time.  The chart is set for Trump’s birth place, Jamaica, NY.  This is what it looks like:

This lunar return covers the period from Febuary 17 2020 through to March 15 2020.  So at the time of writing it has got just under a week to run.  The Moon is in the Sixth House of health, square Neptune, the planet of deception, poison and disease.  Furthermore, Neptune is at the top of the chart, exactly conjunct the Midheaven.  This describes America’s confusion, when confronted by an unseen enemy, in the form of coronavirus.

There is also the issue of Mercury being also conjunct both the Midheaven.  The conjunction is in Pisces, a sign where Mercury is weak.  Mercury is the planet of communication, and  we have the symbolism of a leader who is finding it difficult to communicate, with his statements sounding out of touch with reality.

What’s really interesting about the lunar return is that it was triggered by the Full Moon on March 9.  This Full Moon was at 19 degrees 37 minutes Virgo, right on the IC of the return chart.  The whole Neptune experience blasts – or should I say seeps – into the limelight.  I think the rest of the week, until Sunday March 15, is going to be difficult for America and its President.

Week of a Full Moon, on March 9 2020, at 5.48 pm GMT.  The Chart above is set for London.  Witte’s hypothetical planets included.

On Monday there is a Full Moon in Virgo.  This means that the Moon in Virgo is opposition the Sun in Pisces.  This sums up what is happening in the world.  Pisces is the chaos that the coronavirus has launched on the world.  Virgo the obsession with health and hygiene.  I know people are already concerned about their health, but so far, society hasn’t got it.  You’ve still got people thinking that they can carry on as normal.  However, with the Full Moon the clash between a rampant virus and the desire to stay safe will hit home like never before.

Matters are made more complicated by the fact that there is also a conjunction between Venus and Uranus, in early Taurus.  This conjunction makes a 45/135 aspect to the Full Moon.  I think this adds to the pressure, and we might find that relationships take an unexpected turn, for better or for worse.

The Full Moon is also tied in with Neptune, which is conjunct the Sun.  Neptune is the planet of invisible dangers – for example, deceptions, poisons and viruses.  In summary, the Full Moon sees our worse fears about the coronavirus realized – as will unfold over the next fortnight.

By the way, in London and Paris the Full Moon is right on the Ascendant.  Brexit problems?  From a US perspective, the Full Moon is exactly on the MC-IC axis (Sun on the MC) in Atlanta, Georgia, where the the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have their headquarters.  The CDC are going to be busy.

On Tuesday Mercury goes stationary direct, in Aquarius.  In one sense this is good news.  There will be less confusion, and over the next month we’ll have a better understanding of what is going on around us.  It will also be easier to make decisions. However, Mercury goes direct very close to the time of the Full Moon.  This is dangerous, particularly for stock markets.  But of course in the current environment, no-one is going to get any credit for predicting stock market turbulence.  Is the Pope Catholic?

Finally, if you are into harmonics, here is the fourth harmonic of the Full Moon chart.  This chart will bring all the 4th harmonic aspects together (conjunction, opposition, square), and will turn the 45-135 series aspects into oppositions:

You can see how the Neptune opposition to the Full Moon has been turned into a conjuntion, and the 45/135 aspects from Venus-Uranus have been turned into an opposition.

Astrologers above a certain age are obsessed by the October 19 1987 stock market crash, where the Dow fell 20% in one day.  From that date on, we’ve been frantic to find the next crash, and many of us naively thought that a crash is a single, catastrophic event.  In reality, stock market crashes tend to be slow-motion events – a death by a thousand cuts.  Furthermore, central banks are better able to control the markets than they were in 1987.  If they see markets stalling, they can do things like lower interest rates and pump liquidity.  This means that astrologers have to be very careful about predicting stock market falls.

Right now market sentiment is falling, and some people think that we have already had a crash.  In reality, shares were over-valued, and they’ve slipped a bit.  Of course there is also the Covid-19 issue, and you don’t have to be an astrologer to forecast that it will have a negative impact on the stock market.  Indeed, it is already having a negative impact.

So is astrology of any use?  When considering stock market movements, the Jupiter-Saturn cycle is of critical important.  The conjunctions and oppositions can mark important turning points, and right now we are heading into a conjunction.  You can see the conjunction in the following graphic:

The graph hasn’t come out very well – if you want a properly sized copy, send me an email.  It shows the movement of Jupiter (in green) and Saturn (in blue), in 2020.  At the beginning of the year they are getting closer to each other, reaching peak closeness in May 2020.  They then go retrograde, and go further apart.  Then as the Autumn progesses their direct movement continues, and the conjunction becomes exact at the end of December.

The last Jupiter-Saturn conjunction was at the end of May 2000.  Just prior to the conjunction, in March, the dot com bubble popped.  The NASDAQ peaked on March 10 2000.  On that day, Jupiter was at around 4 degrees 30 Taurus and Saturn at around 13 15 Taurus.  So the two planets were about 9 degrees apart. As I write, on March 6, Jupiter and Saturn are only eight degrees apart.

Yet so far there hasn’t been a crash.  Indeed, when I look at financial websites, many people are seeing a buying opportunity.  This is the mentality that investors have developed since 2008.  The market has always gone up, and every dip has been an opportunity to buy.  You can see this from the following graph of the the Standard & Poor stock market index:

The recent pull back is just a blip.  To get us into a bear market the S & P would have to retreat to around 2700 – see the upper red line.  To give us a 50% retrace, of the whole move from 2008 to 2020, you have to go down to the 2000 mark – see the lower red line.

Astrology aside, it would seem that the Covid-19 virus is enough to stop the Standard & Poor in its tracks.  However, we should never underestimate the ability of central banks to pump the markets.  Particularly now, when Donald Trump is standing for re-election.  He knows that his presidency lives and dies by the stock market.

If you want to know what lengths central banks will go to to keep the markets up, think of Jules Vernes’ book “Round the World in 80 Days”, which was set in the late Nineteenth Century.  It is a few years since I read it, but the hero, Phileas Fogg, had to cross the Atlantic Ocean super quickly in order to win a bet.  Unfortunately, the steamer he was on was too slow, and the captain told him that the boat first had to go to a port in France before going to its final destination in Liverpool, England.  Fogg was going to lose the bet. Or if you are Donald Trump, the stock market is going to crash and you are going to lose the election.  So what do you do?

Phileas Fogg solves part of the problem by buying the steamer from the captain.  He can now take the steamer directly to England, without having to stop off in France first.  He then orders the ship’s crew to go as fast as possible.  Unfortunately, there isn’t enough coal.  Fogg solves this new problem by telling the crew to use the ship itself as fuel.  Everything wooden on the boat is put into the furnace, meaning that the ship is destroyed so that it can reach its destination.  That is how Trump and the central bankers are going to try to save the economy.  They are going to tear it apart.  Of course Trump doesn’t care, provided he wins the November 2020 election.

However, will the plan work?  Since 2008, the market has managed to breeze past every crisis.  However there is now a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, at a time when stocks are fully valued, when Covid-19 is almost certainly going to send the world into a recession.  No, the plan is not going to work, and the falls in the market we’re seeing are only the beginning.  There will be recoveries, but I am confident that the Standard & Poor is heading back to the 2000 mark over the next year or two.

What about the shorter term?  Covid-19 is not going away.  And next week we have two astrological events happening very close together.  Mercury goes direct on Tuesday March 10 at 3.48 am GMT.   And the previous day, on March 9, at 5.48 pm GMT, there is a Full Moon.  When a Mercury station coincides with a lunation, there is very often fireworks in the market.

So how I do express this without giving the impress that I am hedging my bets?  I can outline two scenarios.  The optimistic scenario would say that the market started falling with Mercury going retrograde on February 17.  Here is the chart:

The S & P did actually go up a little after February 17 – the vertical line is Mercury going stationary retrograde.  But by and large, we can see the market movement in terms of Mercury going retrograde, and Mercury’s station will lead to a sharp recovery, and perhaps new highs over the Summer.  Of course the market will still crash, but later.  This kind of event happened in October and November of 1987.  Mercury went retrograde on Friday October 16 1987, and on Monday October 19 the market sold off 20%.  But that was it.  The market stabilized within days.  There was no immediate recovery, but the worst was over pretty quickly.

However, this time round we have Covid-19 and a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction.  My feeling is that a combination of Mercury Direct and a Full Moon on March 9 and 10 will be serious, and that recent falls in the market aren’t just a one-week wonder.

Critics of astrology will tell you that astrology doesn’t work, that you can make any label fit.  So let’s pretend that we don’t know that Trump is a Gemini.  Let’s imagine that I tell you he is an Aries.  That’s fine, he acts first, thinks later.  Or he’s a Taurus.  He has grudges, like the worst of Taureans, and he is obsessed about money.  What about Gemini, his real sign?  He talks and tweets too much.  Cancer?  Like Taureans, they’re unforgiving and they have grudges.  Trump can definitely be a Leo, because he has such a high opinion of himself.  Alternatively he could be Virgo – by his own admission, he is a “germophobe”.  While Trump is not your typical Libra, he knows about the art of the deal, and that can be something of a balancing act.  Scorpio could fit.  He is unforgiving, like Cancerians, and he has a powerful sense of purpose, which has propelled him to the White House.  Alternatively Trump could be a Sagittarian, with his off the cuff and often tactless remarks.  Trump might not be modest, but he could be a Capricorn, building his businesses with scant regard for the feelings of other people.  Or an Aquarius – he does things his own way, and he isn’t held back by convention.  Or even a Pisces, with his ability to mold himself to fit the aspirations of a particular section of the American electorate.

Having said all that, if I had tried to guess what Trump’s star sign was, without knowing his birth date, I would have narrowed it down to three signs, Aries, Gemini and Leo.  Anything else would be implausible, or at least would have jarred with my gut feelings as an astrologer.

The question then remains, about the things that make Trump uniquely a Gemini.

Gemini is an Air sign.  This means that the emphasis is on the head rather than the heart.  Or thinking rather than feeling.  At this stage there might be some protest, Donald Trump not being famous as a great thinker.  So we have to decide which type of Gemini Donald Trump is.  One type of Gemini is the real thinker, and one might think of an ultimate intellectual, such as French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre.  Or the well-read, highly intelligent John F Kennedy.  We can perhaps call such Geminis “evolved”, though I rather dislike the term.  Then there is the other kind of Gemini, the “unevolved”, who is obsessed about trivia.  They make brilliant C-list celebrities, and they can chatter away about anything, without knowing what they are chattering about.  This sort of Gemini skims the surface, and refuses to stay in one place for long enough to develop any in-depth knowledge.  However both types of Geminis have active brains.  The cogs are always spinning, and sometimes the focus of attention can get transfixed on one subject, with negative consequences.

Donald Trump is clearly the second type of Gemini.  Although he has lots of books published, he apparently doesn’t read much.  And he does seem to be a sucker for trivia, for example during the Miss Universe incident.  In 2016 it got out that Donald Trump had called a Miss Universe contestant Miss Piggy, a fact that was brought up by Hillary Clinton during the first presidential debate.  The key point about the incident, from a Gemini perspective, is that Donald couldn’t let go.  Immediately follow the debate, in the middle of the night, Trump was tweeting about it.  For example, “Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?”

This tells us a couple of things.  When the Gemini mind is riled up, it finds it difficult to sleep.  We also see the obsession with trivia – what normal presidential candidate would be interested in sex tapes and Miss Universe?  Of course I understand that Trump had a commercial interest in a the Miss Universe competition.  But fundamentally, Trump the Gemini couldn’t let go.  He was worrying about the issue, and he thought he could resolve the problem by tweeting about it.

The situation may have been similar with the Comey issue.  Trump was worried whether he was under investigation because of his alleged links to Russia, and he couldn’t help himself from asking the former head of the FBI whether he was indeed being investigated.  Comey told him he wasn’t under investigation, but that wasn’t going to stop Gemini from worrying.

Another feature of Gemini, whether evolved or unevolved, is their tendency towards schizoid behaviour.  By schizoid, I am referring to the withdrawal of emotion from the outside world.  Other people are not part of my world.  They can be seen as objects, and Trump’s remarks about women are a prime example of Gemini objectification.  However every sign is capable of objectifying, so one perhaps needs to be more specific.  Trump’s insults during the election campaign would suggest that he was seeing his targets as mere objects, and wasn’t considering the human dimension.  So when the Muslim parents of a US soldier killed in Iraq are critical of Trump, he attacks back, without any emotional subtlety.  From Trump the Gemini’s perspective, other people’s feelings are not his concern, and if he wants to say or tweet something, that’s his business.

One thing that has been said about Trump is that he finds it difficult to stay on one subject for too long – he gets bored, and moves on.  This is classic, unevolved Gemini.  He says one thing one moment, another thing the next.  Of course Trump has a positive spin on this.  He claims that he moves too fast for his communications department to keep up, which is again typical Gemini, because they have an excuse for everything.

Another feature of Geminis is that they often have the gift of the gab.  They talk a lot, and they can wrap people up in the sheer volume of their sales-talk.  His business enterprises sounded good, such as his casinos and his Trump University, but the sales-talk masked a lack of substance.  Fortunately Geminis are fast-moving, and on several occasions Trump has used bankruptcy laws to get himself out of a tight spot.

I have never attempted to guess Donald Trump’s star sign – at some stage I looked up his date of birth. Nonetheless I believe that I would have quickly narrowed down the possibilities to Aries, Gemini and Leo, and that if I had thought hard enough about the matter, I would have had a good chance of correctly identifying his real star sign.  However I concede that this might all be post hoc justification, and that with some verbal gymnastics, all of the twelve signs could have been made to fit.