Astrology, Prediction and Comment

I am not interested in Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood or movie stars.  But I couldn’t help noticing that Weinstein has just been convicted of various sex crimes.  In fact listening to the radio this morning, Weinstein’s conviction seemed more important than the coronavirus and the Dow Jones falling 1000 points.  But what do I know?  Clearly Harvey Weinstein’s conviction is big news, and I need to look at his horoscope.

When I do this kind of chart, I often play a game with myself.  I try to see if I can guess the person’s star sign before I look at the birthdate.  From what little I knew of Weinstein, I guessed Pisces, and I was right.  I am not absolutely sure why I made this guess.  Maybe something about his appearance, maybe the bizarreness of his sexual behaviour.  Anyway, here is his horoscope:

What stands out about the chart is that Weinstein has Mars in Scorpio conjunct the Ascendant, which is square Pluto in Leo conjunct the Midheaven.  Power is very important to him, and he expects to get his way.  Any beginner astrologer would say the same.  A beginner astrologer would also notice that he had a T-Square: the Moon in Capricorn is opposition Uranus in Leo, and Saturn squares both, making the T.  The Moon-Uranus opposition is explosive.  One would expect outbreaks of temper, but with Saturn aspecting the  opposition, there would be attempts at self-control.  Maybe it’s like trying to keep a lid on a thunderstorm.

But what about the sexual issues?  When I looked at Weinstein’s chart, I was immediately interested in the Venus-Mars midpoint, which is at 11 degrees 19 minutes Capricorn.  His Moon is at 12 37 Capricorn, and is therefore conjunct the midpoint.  His Saturn is at 12 35 Libra, and square it.  This means that Weinstein’s exact Moon-Saturn square is feeding into his Venus-Mars midpoint.

The Moon-Saturn square is about some kind of emotional repression, and it might also be about a desire to control women – after all the Moon, like Venus, is a planet connected with the feminine principle.  And the aspect is on the Venus-Mars midpoint.  On its own, the Moon on the Venus-Mars midpoint is about instinctive sex.  Though in a male chart it might be an attitude towards women.  Perhaps regarding women as sex objects, perhaps taking the view that they would never object to his sexual advances.  And when you throw Saturn onto the Venus-Mars point, you get a commodification of sex.  It is something to be traded, for  careers and roles.

As far as timing is concerned, it was interesting to note that on Sunday February 23, the day before the guilty verdict, there was a New Moon at 4 29 Pisces – bang on his natal Venus, which is at 4 20 Pisces.  Normally New Moons on your Venus are fortunate.  They can signify new relationships and perhaps new sources of income.  Especially as Venus is exalted in Pisces.  However, it may be that Weinstein’s Venus in Pisces is entirely projected, and the good fortune and happiness was experienced by his female victims rather than himself.  It should also be noted that in Weinstein’s chart Venus rules the Twelfth House of prisons.

The weekend New Moon in early Pisces is probably the main influence.  Many of us will feel that it is a time for new beginnings, and we’ll be ready to say good bye to the past.  However, it’s probably not the time for heroics.  Instead we should quietly consider our next move, and remember that in the first instance, secrecy is vital.

Probably the best part of the week will be the first part.  The Sun in Pisces is making a favourable aspect to Mars in Capricorn.  We can be assertive, provided we do it in such a way that few people notice.  It’s all about making behind the scenes manoeuvres, which might not have their payoff for weeks if not months.

As far as the 12 signs are concerned, here are my forecasts for the week starting on Monday February 24 2020:

Aries The most warlike sign of the Zodiac needs to understand the importance of subtlety.  And with the Sun aspecting Mars you can get your way without making a scene.  A person of medium height, who probably wears glasses, can make all the difference.

Taurus In your social life there are things going on.  The New Moon that kicked the week off brings the possibility of new friends, and new hang-outs can bring new pleasures.  However those close to you have high standards and sloppiness on your part might not be forgiven.

Gemini It is time to think about your public profile.  What kind of person are you?  What kind of image do you want to project?  Different audiences have different expectations, and last weekend’s New Moon in slippery Pisces allows you to be all things to all people.

Cancer Cancerians can so easily retreat into their shells.  It feels safe, but there is no intellectual or spiritual progress.  Yet with the Sun aspecting Mars other people can take you to the next stage.  The more exotic the culture the better – but keep it safe.

Leo The Sun is your ruler, and this week it is making a favourable aspect to Mars.  You’ll have plenty of get-up-and-go, but you’ll nonetheless have to go through the logical steps.  In terms of money there could be new developments.

Virgo For many Virgos it is a troubling time – after all, you’re a health-conscious sign, and talk of coronavirus and Covid-19 can be deeply unsettling.  However last Sunday’s New Moon (February 23) brings the possibility of an interesting meeting.  Face-masks can’t hide the soul!

Libra Libra is one of the most human signs, and some Librans can have issues with animals.  Yet right now pets – or should I say companion animals – may be important.  Even a fleeting encounter with wildlife could have a profound impact.  If you keep fish, an important week.

Scorpio The favourable aspect between the Sun and Mars at the beginning of the week should work to your advantage.  The Sun is your career ruler, Mars is your star sign ruler, and together they give you a great deal of power.  Struggle and talent comes together nicely.

Sagittarius At the moment you’re fairly grounded, or at least you should be.  You know what’s important and you know that you don’t have to  reach out for it.  Things connected with property, real estate and mining can be successful.  But water pipes should be treated with caution.

Capricorn Your communication skills are excellent, at least in comparison to other people’s.  Your words carry great weight, and you know what needs to be said.  If you have been meaning to make a short journey, now is probably the time.

Aquarius The Sun and Mars are on either side of your star sign, making a fortunate aspect.  Things can happens, if you want them to.  And with a New Moon in Pisces you can give serious consideration to your finances.  Sometimes it’s enough to just make a start.

Pisces Don’t be complacent.  You have an opportunity, but it’s an opportunity that won’t last for long.  Look around,  decide on a course of action.  Also, think about your  dearest wish, and consider what steps you need to take to turn fantasy into reality.

I was amused to watch a clip of Donald Trump’s recent rally in Colorado, where he lambasted the Motion Picture Academy for giving an Oscar for Best Picture to the South Korean movie Parasite.  He said in his speech “On top of it they give them [South Korea] the best movie of the year. Was it good? I don’t know. You know, I’m looking for… Gone with the Wind, can we get Gone with the Wind back please… Sunset Boulevard… so many great movies…”.

When I listened to what Donald was saying, I found myself trying to work out whether I was listening to a Gemini or a Cancerian.  Of course he has his Sun in Gemini, conjunct Uranus.  However, we shouldn’t forget that he has Mercury, Venus and Saturn in Cancer.  Mercury and Venus, like the Sun, are personal planets, and they do reflect core aspects of the personality.

Now I understand that it is easy to interpret Donald’s words in a Gemini light.  Geminis will say anything, and they won’t be afraid of contradicting themselves.  At the same time, their belief systems can be shallow.  From an electoral point of view he has decided that a chauvinistic approach gets votes.  Support America, bash the foreigner.  And show some studied ignorance, because anti-intellectualism can be a winning strategy in American politics: “Was it good?  I don’t know”.

We also have to ask whether Donald was being sincere when he praised Gone with the Wind and Sunset Boulevard.  We know that he has a short-attention span, and this is in keeping with his Gemini personaltiy.  Gone with the Wind is nearly four hours long.  Can you imagine him sitting through the whole thing?  I’m a Gemini, I have never watched Gone with the Wind, and I have no plans to ever watch it.  The film sounds boring, and I suspect that Donald would lose patience within minutes.

Yet perhaps I shouldn’t rush to judgement.  The President has three planets in Cancer, and traditionally Cancer is a sentimental, even nostaligic sign, which often looks back wistfully at the past.  Trump’s electoral slogan of “Make America Great Again” also has a Cancerian feel – it’s looking backwards, to a supposedly glorious past.

We then find, according to the Movieline website in 2012, that Gone with the Wind really is one of Trump’s favourite movies.  Donald said of the film “It’s a classic. It has stood the test of time. For me, it’s a love story combined with a time in our country’s history that was pivotal in our evolution. The scope of the storytelling is tremendous.”  Another film that he rated was The Godfather: “The story is riveting and the characters were perfectly cast and directed. The family aspect intrigued me as did their business and history”.  Cancer is a sign that is often associated with the family, so it is not surprising that Donald rates The Godfather.  Look at Trump’s own family, and how they are entwined in the machinery of government.

Another point to make is that the United States is a Cancerian country, born on July 4 1776.  This helped Cancerian George Bush Junior, born on July 6 1946, to win the 2000 election.  Trump’s Mercury in Cancer speaks to America’s heart, or should I say America’s base.  It supports the nation’s sentimental nature, which in many respects looks back to the past rather than forward to the future.

Recently I have been getting some criticism for trying to interpret horoscopes that don’t have a birth time.  This usually happens when I look at someone in the news, where I only have a date and a place of birth.  When I do the horoscopes of clients, they invariably know their birth time.  Having the birth time certainly allows me to more accurately delineate their character, and it is essential for most predictive techniques.  However, I do believe that a horoscope without a time can be useful, particularly if we want to confirm what we know about someone already.

The horoscope is a map of the heavens at the time of someone’s birth.  It is usually relative to the horizon.  So someone born at 7.10 am in London, on February 20, will have the Sun rising, and someone born at exactly the same moment in New Zealand will have it setting.  In astrology this makes a big difference.  The Londoner will be more dynamic and transparent while the New Zealander will be more people-oriented.

In astrology the  planets are often described in terms of sign and house.  The sign describes how a planet acts, the house where it acts.  Planets can stay in a sign for a long time – a couple of days for the Moon, a month for the Sun, over a decade for Neptune and Pluto.  This means you don’t necessarily need to know the time someone was born in order to know which signs the planets are in.  However the houses move rapidly, and over the course of 24 hours a planet will go through all twelve of them.

When you have an untimed chart, you generally set it for the time of least error, which is midday.  This means that your time is going to be no more than 12 hours out.  You won’t have the houses, and you won’t have the sign of the Ascendant, but you will have the sign of most if not all of the planets.  Yet there will be times when a planet changes sign halfway through the day.  This is most frequently the case with the Moon, and not having the Moon sign can make interpretation very difficult.

We then have the question of aspects, which are the angular distances between planets, measured along the ecliptic.  The Moon is a fast-moving body, which travels around 12 degrees a day.  A midday position will fix the Moon to within 6 degrees, and this means that we can’t use the minor aspects, which have small orbs.  Aspects involving the planets Mercury through Pluto won’t be affected too much by a 12 hour margin or error.

Let’s now a have a look at a well-known personality, who we don’t have a birth time for.  We’ll go for Joseph Stalin, who was born on December 18 1878, in Gori, Georgia.  The chart is given an X Rodden Rating, meaning that there is no time of birth.  According to some sources, I shouldn’t even look at Stalin’s horoscope, because I don’t know what time he was born.  And I certainly shouldn’t make publically available statements about it.  However, I believe that the midday horoscope tells us a great deal, about both Stalin and astrology.  Here is the chart:

The Moon was at 12 47 Libra at midday in Gori.  The earliest it could possibly have been was 5 47 Libra, the latest 19 58 Libra.  We can therefore be sure that Stalin had a Libra Moon, and this might tell us something about his political style.  In the 1920s and early 1930s he consolidated his power by being the moderate – keeping the balance between rival factions of the Communist Party.  That way he could split and marginalize his enemies.

As far as aspects are concerned, there was a close square between Stalin’s Sun-Venus conjunction and Saturn, which was operational throughout the day.  Likewise Mars and Saturn, the death pair, were in trine –  for Stalin, sending people to their deaths was easy.

And if you’re analyzing horoscopes without a time, it can be useful to use midpoints.  By looking at the midpoint structure of the planets, node and Aries point you get some compensation for the lack of houses.  For example, here is the midpoint structure of Stalin’s Aries point, with Witte’s hypothetical planets included:

AR = SU/KR = PL/NN = ZE/KR = VE = HA

The Aries point represents our relationship to the world at large, and can be especially important in the chart of politicians.  The Sun-Kronos and Zeus-Kronos midpoints represent the power of the state, with particular emphasis on military might.  This is what Stalin brought and manifested into the world.  Also, through Aries on the Pluto-Node midpoint, we get a sense of a tragedy being visited on the general population, strengthened by the connection with Hades.  Yet Stalin also had the planet Venus close to the Aries point.  The Russian people loved him, and the tears they shed at the news of his death were genuine.

I think you would have been hard-pushed to predict Stalin’s death on the basis of the midday chart.  Indeed, you would have been hard-pushed to make any detailed predictions.  This is because most predictive systems require an accurate time of birth.  For example, primary directions, a system traditionally used to forecast death, are based on the turning of the Earth, with one degree of rotation representing one year.  In many cases this means that for every four minutes out the birthtime is, the prediction will be out by a year or longer.  Likewise the Vimshottari Dasa system of Vedic astrology requires an accurate time.  If Stalin was born right at the beginning of the day, his Mercury dasa would have started on April 19 1946, if right at the end then ten years earlier, on August 7 1936.

Nonetheless, transits can be used on charts with a midday horoscope.  They might be vague, because you don’t have houses, but they will tell you something.  So let’s imagine that you’re an astrologer in Moscow in 1941, and Stalin consults you for a chart reading.  He doesn’t know his time of birth, so you have to use a midday chart.  And let’s say he gives you his real date of birth, December 18 1878, not his preferred date of December 21 1879.

Even without a birthtime, you would have noticed that Stalin had a strong Mars – it is in Scorpio, the sign of its rulership, in both the Western and Eastern zodiacs.  However, you would have been worried.  In 1941 Saturn and Uranus were in late Taurus, opposition to Stalin’s Mars.  This would have been a stressful time for him.  There might also have been a battle of wills between him and his enemies.  And let’s say Stalin pushes you, wanting you to be more precise.  When is the day of maximum stress?  What should he expect? It is difficult to give him a precise answer, because his Mars is anywhere between 25 30 and 26 12 Scorpio.  The Uranus aspect could have been exact any time between May 5 and May 17 1941.  The Saturn aspect would be two months later, between July 12 and July 20.

You would explain this to Stalin, and being a reasonable man, with the Moon in Libra, he might have asked you to compromise, to find a happy medium.  Or to put that in astrological language, you would tell him when the transitting Saturn-Uranus midpoint made the oppostion aspect to his Mars in Scorpio.  If it had been available, you could then have looked at Astrodienst’s midpoint ephemeris for the month of June 1941:

We can see that the transitting Saturn-Uranus midpoint would have hit Stalin’s Mars between June 18 and June 27 1941.  Operaton Barbarossa, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, was on June 22 1941.  This suggests two things.  Firstly, that you can forecast real events, with a good degree of accuracy, on the basis of a midday chart.  Secondly, the chart of the leader is often the chart of the nation.

Over the course of this article, I have argued that you don’t need a time of birth to usefully interpret someone’s horoscope.  You are going to lose detail, but if you make maximum use of the technical resources available to you – for example midpoints – you can come up with important insights into someone’s character and destiny.  As far as client work is concerned, the issue of missing birth times doesn’t usually come up.  In my experience, people who consult astrologers tend to know their birth time.