Asteroid-World Fall 1990
Zip Dobyns
We are certainly living in “interesting” times, watching a new world being created, some of it very unstable. The formerly “communist” countries are experiencing some of the worst features of “capitalism” as their people face life without jobs, homes or even food in some areas, while crime increases along with ethnic and religious strife that was formerly controlled by the iron hand of the state. As the countries of Western Europe form closer organizations, others threaten to split into warring parts. The U.S.S.R. is the most obvious example, but Yugoslavia may follow on its heels, and several other east European nations are trying to reconcile ethnic disputes including Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Even our northern neighbor, Canada, is living uneasily on the edge of a potential schism in the country. The spring 1990 Asteroid-World discussed the national charts of Canada. It will take wise leadership as well as much patience and tolerance among the people if the different groups are to form cooperating federations in Eastern Europe to replace the former totalitarian control by the centralized force of armies and secret police. Canada has the advantage of many years as a functioning democracy. Democracy is “messy” (witness the recent budget battle between Bush and the Congress) but hopefully it will be worth the struggle if we can avoid sliding into a variant form of dictatorship by an oligarchy, a relatively small group of the financial elite like the 15 families that run El Salvador.
One of the dramatic changes occurred as this issue of the Asteroid-World was being pulled together. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain for 11 1/2 years, was finally challenged as leader of the conservative party. On the first vote on November 20, she fell just 4 votes short of the 15% edge over her opponent that she needed to hold the position. Even though she only needed a majority to win on a second ballot, she was told privately that enough of the conservative members of Parliament were likely to change their votes so that she would probably lose. Rather than risk that, which would give the position to her challenger, Heseltine, she resigned on November 22. This action opened the way for two of her supporters to run against Heseltine, since they had refused to run against Thatcher.
The three-way contest between Heseltine, Hurd, and Major has just been won by John Major, a highly unlikely Tory. He will be the youngest Prime Minister in this century as well as the first to come from a poor family. His father, Tom Major, had been a circus trapeze artist who later started his own business making lawn ornaments and who was 66 years old when John Major was born. His father’s business failed, and the family moved to a two room flat in a poor area where they shared a bathroom and kitchen with other apartments. John dropped out of school at age 16 to help support the family. He never finished high school or attended college, but his intelligence and hard work has made him a real Horatio Alger story. He was a construction worker for a time, and actually unemployed and on the dole for about eight months till he started on the bottom rung of a bank and worked his way up to a management position and thence into politics. His rise to power in a group made up mostly of the wealthy elite is an encouraging sign that democracy is possible, though much of the credit is given to the fact that he was a protégé of Margaret Thatcher. He was Thatcher’s choice to succeed her, so he may also have benefited by some votes of MPs who felt guilty for dumping Thatcher or who resented Heseltine for the latter’s attack on Thatcher.
John Major was born on March 29, 1943. Our friends in England will no doubt try to get his birth time, but in the meantime I have calculated his chart for noon in London. Even without a birth time, we can get the degree of everything except the Moon and the angles, and the asteroids provide their usual stunning performance. Major has natal Pallas (our most political asteroid) on Margarita (for his patron, Margaret Thatcher) and for some years P Mars and P Irakli are in the same degree—21 Pisces. Thatcher’s P Uranus and Bush’s natal Uranus are in the same degree. In Major’s chart, P Margarita is conjunct his natal Sun as he replaces her in the top government position. If he was born in the first half of the day, Major also has his natal Sun within one degree of Chaldaea while natal Irakli is quincunx Pluto. P Chaldaea has been moving over Ceres. He has inherited the confrontation in the gulf so will be dealing with Chaldaea-Iraq. Natal Winchester, our asteroid for guns, squares natal Mars and P Winchester is conjunct P Saturn, executive power. In the gulf and elsewhere, Major will of course be dealing with the U.S. and President Bush. In Major’s chart, asteroids George and Washington are conjunct each other and opposite Ceres. P America is on P Moon if Major was born in the middle of the day, and a mid-day birth would also put them opposite natal Sun and trine Saturn. Natal Herbert is quincunx natal Sun and square Saturn.
Another of Major’s inherited challenges involves the unpopular poll tax which helped to defeat Thatcher. Most people have heard of Godiva’s famous ride but not as many know that it involved taxes. In Major’s chart, P Godiva squares Pluto while Thatcher has P Pluto conjunct Godiva. Natal Vesta and Godiva are in Major’s chart which fits the fact that his new job puts him on the tax hot seat. P Vesta, the details of one’s job, is quincunx P Coventry which was named for Godiva’s town, and P Saturn trines natal Coventry. There is more on Godiva and Coventry in the discussion of Thatcher’s chart for which we have a birth time.
Even though she is now out of power, Thatcher’s horoscope is worth examining. She has had an enormous effect on Great Britain, pushing it away from its previous welfare state tendencies toward capitalism. Whether one applauds the results depends on one’s philosophy. She successfully broke the power of the unions, as Reagan did in the U.S. Britain became more competitive in the world and the rich got richer, partly with the help of lower taxes though they are not as low as they are in the U.S. Simultaneously, the poor got poorer though they are not as desperate as many in the U.S. There is not as much crime or homelessness or drug use in Britain though they are serious problems. One of the main reasons for Thatcher’s fall was the so-called “poll tax” which she pushed through last spring and the other was her resistance to full incorporation in the EEC (the European Economic Community). The poll tax levied an equal amount on every citizen, so (as was pointed out), the millionaire Prince of Wales paid the same amount as his butler. Tax fairness can be an emotional issue, as the U.S. Republicans discovered this fall. Thatcher’s resistance to surrendering Britain’s control over their currency, economic regulations, etc. was partly based on her gut-level distrust of Germany especially but also of the socialists who are largely running the bureaucratic apparatus of the EEC. Her opponents in the struggle for the Prime Minister’s post are all more willing to cooperate with the EEC, though they hope to help persuade it not to become too socialistic. Thatcher had lost any influence in the EEC discussions, being seen as simply a negative nag who could be ignored.
As is always the case with individuals who play prominent roles in the world, Thatcher has many dramatic asteroids in her chart. I was amused to hear that some people were calling her “Attila the Hen” for the combination of her real potential for being ruthless with her “mother hen” nagging. Would you believe that she was born with the asteroid Attila on her Descendant within six minutes of longitude if her 9 A.M. birth time is accurate? I assume that all of our readers are familiar with the historical conqueror Attila the Hun. Thatcher also had a combination I have never seen before: Icarus on her Sun in both her natal and her progressed charts. Icarus was retrograde at birth, turned direct, and caught up to her progressed (P) Sun a few years ago. Icarus is most likely to be associated with some kind of overreach (the keynote in the myth) when it is involved with fire, especially conjunct a fire body such as Sun, Mars, or Jupiter. It is one of the few asteroids which can come inside the orbit of Mercury, so, like the inner planets Mercury and Venus, it can be retrograde when it is close to the Sun. Remember that I only mention asteroid aspects which are within a one-degree orb.
Other appropriate asteroids included Winchester on Thatcher’s East Point in Sagittarius in her first house, fitting her war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Though Winchester could relate to religion or education, I mostly see it associated with guns. P Winchester has been slowly moving over Thatcher’s Antivertex and is still on her local Antivertex in London while she has sent military forces to Saudi Arabia to join the confrontation of Saddam Hussein. Thatcher’s P Sun is currently on her birthplace Antivertex and natal Columbia as well as opposite Pallas, the asteroid I find most involved with politics. P Icarus is on her local Antivertex which is just over a degree later than the birthplace position. The asteroid Columbia could refer to the country with the name, a major source of cocaine in the world, or to the District of Columbia, location of our nation’s capital. The U.S. supported Britain during the war with Argentina. Thatcher’s natal asteroid named for Argentina was semisextile her natal Winchester and they have held the aspect all her life. P Argentina was also conjunct P Jupiter in Capricorn in recent years, fitting her triumph. During the war, P Argentina was square Thatcher’s Mercury, ruler of her MC, key to her executive power.
The country Argentina was not Thatcher’s only struggle. In her position as Prime Minister, she also had to deal with the constant strife in Northern Ireland, and was herself the target of a bomb a few years ago. Thatcher also had Achilles and Agamemnon on her IC at birth, two famous warriors in the Trojan War that was celebrated by Homer. Her support of and from the U.S. was suggested by Washingtonia in her tenth house sextile-trine the mean lunar nodes across the third-ninth houses. Her P Washingtonia and P Moskva (Moscow) have been moving conjunct each other, sextile Juno (the marriage asteroid) and semisextile natal Ascendant as Thatcher has worked cooperatively with the U.S. and U.S.S.R. P Europa, on the other hand, has been squaring her Mercury and recently started a quincunx to Neptune, fitting her tension with Europe and her separation from both her role in dealing with other countries (Neptune in the ninth house) and her residence (Neptune ruling the fourth house). She has just moved out of the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing St.
Thatcher’s very different feelings about the U.S. and Germany are interesting since asteroids America and Germania are conjunct in her first house in Scorpio and they have had P Saturn and P Mars on them for some years. She has obviously not read some of the material I have seen about the undercover cooperation between the U.S. and Germany, both during the war and after it. At the same time that the U.S. was prosecuting the well-known Nazi leaders of Germany, it was protecting many Nazi storm troopers and secret police, making them the core of our CIA for years where they nearly talked us into a first strike against Russia in 1948, insisting that Russia was about to attack us. Thatcher came to her power position from the middle class. Her father was a shop keeper. She was not exposed to either the counter-culture literature that continues to reveal the secret deals of the elite, nor was she a part of the elite ruling group to be privy to their private plans though she did their work very successfully as Reagan did in the U.S. P Germania is now on Thatcher’s Juno, which can suggest partnership or power struggles, while P America is square P Uranus as she is booted out of her office and home. Thatcher also had natal Uranus and Libya conjunct, and she got into hot water at home when she allowed the U.S. to use bases in England for our planes when we bombed Libya.
Many more asteroids are also relevant, including Pluto in a lifetime conjunction with Thatcher’s Godiva and Coventry conjunct the true north lunar node. History buffs will remember that Godiva was a beautiful English woman married to a foreign tyrant who took control of and imposed heavy taxes on the people of her town of Coventry. According to the story (which may be more legend than fact), when Godiva begged for relief for her people, her husband sneered that he would reduce the taxes if she rode nude through the streets of the town. Of course, that would permit him to say that she was a slut and to put her away, but the story goes that she made the ride covered by her long hair and that all of the townspeople looked away so she would not be compromised. As mentioned above, Thatcher was defeated partly because of the unpopular tax which the conservatives feared would permit the labor party to win in the next general elections. Thatcher’s P Ascendant is quincunx Coventry and P Venus (ruling the Libra which is partly in her tenth house) is quincunx P Godiva. P Venus was also opposite P Coventry when the tax was passed. Both the quincunx and the opposition aspects are often associated with separations. Godiva’s and Pluto’s positions in the eighth house also fit her focus on the issue of taxes as, like Reagan, she lowered the taxes of the rich and raised the taxes of the poor. In the U.S., it is the increased social security taxes which have really hit the working poor.
There were many separative quincunxes and oppositions in Thatcher’s progressed chart, but I had thought that she might hold on for a few more months since her P MC and local P MC are coming to an opposition to P Margarita in 1991. But she already has P Mars opposite natal Margarita, P local Ascendant opposite Vesta (a key to a job), P East Point quincunx Vesta, P Ascendant from her birthplace quincunx the north lunar node, added to the long term aspects like P Chiron opposite Mercury and P Jupiter quincunx Neptune. Recently, her P Moon moved into the trioctile to the natal MC and octile to the IC, fitting the change of status and home. It was also square natal Icarus and conjunct the south nodes of Saturn and Pluto as well as Hiroshima, a strong hint of the power struggle. I haven’t mentioned the asteroids for Iraq, but readers will remember that she was the most belligerent of all the world leaders, calling for immediate war to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and from power over Iraq. In Thatcher’s chart, P Chaldaea, named for the ancient country which mostly coincided with the territory of modern Iraq, is on her natal MC while her P MC is square natal Chaldaea. P Washingtonia and P Moskva are conjunct her natal Irakli, an asteroid named for a person but apparently “working” for the country. P Irakli is opposite P Margarita and will soon reach the conjunction with her natal Saturn plus her P MC will move to conjunct them both in two to three years. We are not going to see any settlement of the turmoil in the Near East for years to come, and Margaret Thatcher will be involved, whether or not she is Prime Minister of England.
Though she is now 65 years old, Thatcher has no interest in retirement. She told a friend in early November that she planned to step down from her post as Prime Minister in the spring of 1991 after John Major had a chance to present a new budget with reduced taxes so he could inherit her post under favorable circumstances. If she really had such a plan, it would fit the time that her P MC reaches the opposition to P Margarita as previously mentioned. She will now continue as a “backbench” (ordinary) member of Parliament representing her district of Finchley. She is reported to have plans for a book of her memoirs which might bring in 12 million in royalties. She is likely also to do a lecture tour, starting in the U.S. And she is said to be considering the creation of a foundation (as was done by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter) to provide a base for her to promote “Thatcherism” in the world. (Carter’s foundation is working to encourage peace in the world). As is the custom with former Prime Ministers in England, she will join the nobility. Retired male P.M.s are made Earls. As a female, Thatcher may become the Countess of Grantham (her birth town) which would let her sit in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament. Her son Mark, a businessman in Texas, would become the Earl of Grantham on her death. She will not lack for money since her husband is a multimillionaire. She has moved into a $400,000 house which was purchased four years ago and has never been lived in, and her husband who, (for public relations) gave up his cherished Rolls Royce when she became Prime Minister will be able to get another one.
Another chart on which I have been spending time is a personal rectification of a chart for Arabia. Champion’s Book of World Horoscopes suggests a time of 3:45 A.M. on January 15, 1902 for Ibn Saud’s conquest of the fortress of Riyadh, but some years before Champion’s book was published I did my own rectification based on events for the country and picked the later time of 4:26 A.M. UT. Of course Riyadh was on LMT at the time, but when working with a rectified chart it is convenient to use UT. I haven’t checked Champion’s time, so can’t comment on the relevant merits of the two times. I hope to do that later. Rectification is very time-consuming.
The Encyclopedia Britannica describes a history of struggles in the Arabian Peninsula between Turkey, Egypt, and various nomadic tribes. Ibn Saud’s Wahhabi forbears started a more strict interpretation of Islam early in the 18th century. They resisted the Turks who controlled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the cities were fought over repeatedly. After an early Ibn Saud was conquered by joint Turkish and Egyptian forces and beheaded, the Hejaz was garrisoned by the victorious forces for 20 years. But another member of the Saudi family captured Riyadh in Najd in 1821 and made it his capital. His son succeeded him, lost the city and then regained it, only to have it lost to the family again when his two oldest sons fought each other after his death. The Saudi family took refuge in Kuwait until a new Ibn Saud returned to reconquer Riyadh in 1902. He is said to have attacked the fortress at dawn, and to have won the battle in a fairly short time. His direct descendants or close family members have controlled the country ever since so the 1902 conquest was truly the beginning of their modern power in the area.
The rising Mars fits a country born in battle while the first house Pisces, Piscean Moon, and the Capricorn stellium in the Pisces house are appropriate for a country that emphasizes a traditional religion. If the chart is reliable, the coming months will be challenging. P Moon will be on natal America and Winchester, our asteroid of guns, square P Mercury, octile P East Point and trioctile P Part of Death. The latter Arabic Part will move to conjunct the natal Part of Death in the chart calculated for Washington, DC and then continue over the natal MC in Riyadh into a square to P MC. P Saturn has reached a conjunction with natal Chaldaea while P Vesta conjuncts natal Saturn and squares P Pallas, P Irakli, and P Mars. That kind of “coincidence” just blows me away since I rectified this chart years before I knew of any problem between Iraq and Arabia and before I had any of the new asteroids. What are the odds that at this point in history we would have P Irakli conjunct P Mars square Saturn and P Saturn conjunct Chaldaea? Natal Chaldaea and P Saturn are also opposite natal Gaea (earth) as the whole earth turns against Iraq. P Gaea is opposite natal Sun-Jupiter with P Sun completing a T-square in this fall of 1990. Natal Washingtonia was conjunct the Descendant at the time I think Saud completed his conquest of Riyadh, and the U.S. has been a partner of sorts ever since our big oil companies helped to develop their oil wells. P Washingtonia is conjunct P Dresden (the city noted for the fire bombing of non-combatant civilians) and both are opposite Chaldaea as the country faces the prospect of similar treatment. P Antivertex in Riyadh squares all of the preceding and is moving into an opposition to the local Antivertex in Washington, DC to complete a cardinal grand cross. There are many factors ranging from 19 to 29 degrees of the cardinal signs and the battles could start as early as mid-January 1991 as the transiting south lunar node, Saturn, and Sun move through late Capricorn. I had picked out the third week of January as especially tense since our Declaration of Independence Pluto and south lunar node are at 27 Capricorn and many other relevant charts have planets around 25 to 27 Cancer-Capricorn. Bush has P Saturn, key to executive power, at 27 Libra. Today’s news reported that the U.N. Security Council has approved Bush’s request to allow the use of force if Saddam has not vacated Kuwait by the middle of January! Saddam says that he will ignore the U.N. order but if he was born in the morning, he will have his P Moon sextile Jupiter and trine Pluto in the spring of 1991 and he might have sense enough to work out a deal of some sort.
Of course there are many other asteroids in the Arabian chart. P Herbert (which works for our President) and P Anubis (Egyptian god of the dead) are both on the P Ascendant in Riyadh. P George squares Pluto. P Europa is on the natal Ascendant in Washington, DC with the Washington P MC just leaving a conjunction with the Washington Ascendant, and they will be squared by P Moon from January into April 1991. I wonder how many of the coalition will stay together through the spring? P Arabia just entered Gemini and it is octile P America and moving into an octile to P Winchester later.
As I wrote in the Virgo The Mutable Dilemma, next year looks like an escalation of tensions through the spring. Saddam has offered to start freeing the American hostages on Christmas and to release all of them within three months, hoping to delay an attack since the Islamic holy month of Ramadan comes in April and after that it is supposed to be too hot to fight in the desert. I am really curious to see what will happen during Ramadan, since April and May are peak months for stress in Bush’s chart. Saddam says that he will ignore the U.N. order to vacate Kuwait. Will he change his mind at the last minute or after a few bombs fall on Baghdad? On the day I planned to start photocopying this issue of the Asteroid-World, Bush announced that he would send Baker to Baghdad to try every peaceful avenue to achieve Kuwait’s freedom before we resort to war. Congress, military experts, and popular polls have all been putting heat on Bush with increasing opposition to immediate war. If Saddam does move out of Kuwait but keeps his military power intact, will Bush find an excuse to attack him when Bush’s chart has the violent aspects in the spring? Or will Bush just be very angry that Saddam is getting away with murder and use covert (CIA) power to try to assassinate him or produce a coup? Or will Bush start the war in late January, escalate it through February, but be pressured into a moratorium by Arab allies in April during the Holy Month, leaving Bush either very upset about it or continuing the war without Arab support? Or will Bush be dealing with terrorism inside the U.S. or against our citizens around the world? Or could there be an assassination attempt against Bush or could he have a heart attack or a stroke if he gets really frustrated? Or will there be economic mayhem with oil prices going through the roof or the recession and debts putting the budget into a tailspin? Or will Bush just run into a lot of protest in the U.S. if he has put the U.S. into a single-handed war? He thinks he can win quickly, and that might be possible if he is willing to kill a lot of civilians and hostages, but that would profoundly disturb many people in our country and would leave the U.S. permanently estranged from the ordinary Muslims. Many of them are already supporting Saddam against their wealthy elite rulers and the foreign infidels. Even if Saddam is finished, there is no way the turmoil in the Near East will end for years to come. Astrology shows issues and timing, but the details remain an educated guess. All we know for sure is that Bush will have a conflicted spring and his P Sun opposite Mars lasts into the summer of 1992. Of course the preceding possibilities are not mutually exclusive. We may have several of them consecutively or concurrently. And, though the conflict is clear, we also have to remember that Bush will have a grand trine in fire signs at the same time, involving P Moon, P MC, and P Jupiter. A reasonable guess at interpreting the mixture might be a “successful” war.
A recent article in the magazine Covert Action by Jane Hunter, said to be an expert on the Near East, presents a cynical view of the situation. She suggests that Bush intends to keep a permanent military force in Saudi Arabia to protect the oil on which our economy depends. The administration has wanted a permanent base in the Near East for a long time, and Saddam gave them the opportunity to move in. The Kuwait attack also has permitted Bush to justify continued spending for the military and the CIA. Forget about the peace dividend. Hunter writes that many Saudis believe that the Saudi royal family has for years depended on the CIA to defend it against its own citizens. She also suggests that if the U.S. is bogged down in the Gulf for years, it will help Israel by distracting people’s attention from the Palestine problem and from the Soviet Jews entering Israel and entrenching Jewish settlements in Palestine. A protracted struggle could also increase the U.S. military aid for Israel, including renewed access to satellite information which has been denied to Israel since they used it to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor some years ago.
A very different theory is offered in Strategic Investment, an economic newsletter which has been accused of getting information from the CIA but which denies the charge. In their issue of October 25, 1990, S.I. claimed that there was a plot between Saddam, Arafat (PLO leader), King Hussein of Jordan, and Yemeni President Mohsin Alaini. The Saudis fought the Yemeni and drove Hussein’s grandfather out of the Hejaz among many other battles stretching through more than 200 years. According to Strategic Investment, Saddam was to secure Kuwait which was once part of Iraq before the British and others helped divvy up the area earlier in this century. Saddam was then to move down the east coast of Saudi Arabia to seize the main oil fields. At the same time, King Hussein was to move down the west coast of Saudi Arabia to reclaim the Hejaz, the land once ruled by his grandfather, the Sherif of Mecca. Ibn Saud conquered the Hejaz in 1924 and the British made the Sherif ruler of Jordan (then Transjordan) as a consolation prize. Mohsin’s forces were to seize the three Saudi provinces of Asir, Najran, and Jaizan which were annexed by Ibn Saud in 1924. S.I. claims that Mohsin has strong forces, lacking only air power, and that he received a squadron of 15 Mig 23s from Iraq a week before the Kuwait invasion. Strategic Investment gives Bush full credit for quick action in freezing Kuwait’s assets world wide, preventing Saddam from getting funds in foreign banks transferred to local Kuwait banks, and in deploying troops to stop the plan. Strategic Investment predicts that King Hussein will lose his throne, that Saddam will be killed in an Iraqi bloodbath, that Arafat will be assassinated and the PLO dismantled, and that Iraq will be divided between Turkey and other countries. They think that Mohsin may survive by groveling to the Saudis. ??? At this point, I am keeping an open mind. There could be some truth in all the theories, but we also may be sold a bill of goods as the elite tighten their hold on the resources of the world.
Another interesting article was passed on to me from a friend. It appeared in the New York Times and it describes some of the formidable weapons in Saddam’s arsenal which were acquired from a Canadian inventor. Gerald Bull, described as the world’s greatest artillery expert, was assassinated in March 1990 as he approached his apartment in a Brussels suburb. The Mossad is suspected, but the murder is unsolved. Bull had designed what is being called a “supergun,” and parts of it were being made in several countries and then shipped to Iraq. The full story is only partly known, and it dates back to the latter days of World War I when the Germans shelled Paris with three huge guns that could send a shell 74 miles and to a height of 26 miles. The guns were developed too late to affect the outcome of the war, and they disappeared and were never found. But years later, a relative of the inventor gave Bull the plans for the guns and he spent much of the rest of his life trying to carry the ideas even farther. Saddam financed his efforts, after he was rejected by Canada and even jailed for a time by the U.S. At this point, no one is sure how many of the new Bull version of the supergun were built, but there is no doubt that Saddam has formidable artillery. News commentators have also pointed out that most of the U.S. military personnel are young and have never faced artillery.
More rectified times for Saddam are coming in. He may end up with as many as Reagan if he survives next year. Bennett Peterson suggests a birth time of 4 P.M. for Saddam, putting P Saturn exactly on the Descendant. I did a little more work on his chart with the help of some additional events in his life thanks to T Pat Davis. I did some experimenting with a time of 6:27 A.M. which put P Mars on the Descendant through his early years as part of a rebel group from mid-1957 to mid-1963, being wounded, having to leave the country, being imprisoned. There were several appropriate angle aspects including P MC square Moon-Mars during the 1963 violence and the current P MC conjunct natal Saturn while his P East Point is square Saturn. His P Sun will square Saturn in the spring of 1991.
But I ended up more impressed with another possible time for Saddam’s birth which comes from a European professor who got it from a Near East associate. Lois Rodden provided the time in her Data News: 8:55 A.M. At first glance, no astrologer would pick out a Pisces MC and Cancer Ascendant for such a militant person who has spent his whole life in a power struggle. But on closer inspection, there are some dramatically appropriate long-term aspects from major planets to the angles, including Neptune opposite the MC. P Neptune turned direct at 16 Virgo 10, so if Saddam’s birth time was just a fraction of a minute earlier than 8:55, P Neptune would stay on his IC all his life. As readers know, Neptune is connected to oil and gas as well as to one’s ethics which are based on one’s faith. Neptune on the fourth house cusp as well as Moon-Mars exactly quincunx the Ascendant also fit some additional information which has just reached me from an “unknown source” in Saddam’s home town of Tikrit. This source says that Saddam’s mother was a psychic in Tikrit who was told psychically that her unborn child would bring disaster to the world. She wanted to get an abortion, but Arabic law prevented that so she tried to commit suicide but failed. When the baby was born, she named him Saddam which means “disaster” in Arabic, and she abandoned him, refusing to have anything to do with him. Bennett Peterson reports that Saddam was abused by his stepfather.
The 8:55 birth time fits the separation from his mother at birth with Moon quincunx Ascendant, and a psychic mother who disappeared with Neptune on the IC. The conflict with the stepfather is suggested by the Saturn square to the Ascendant. P Saturn moved to exactly square the Ascendant in 1980, the year Saddam attacked Iran, one year after he became President of Iraq. Saturn turns retrograde in 2017, so with this birth time Saddam would have the aspect all the rest of his life. If he was born just a minute or so earlier, the aspect would reach the one-degree orb in Baghdad a year earlier when he became President and acquired the real potential for the abuse of power. Mars reached a trioctile (sesquisquare) to the Ascendant in 1982 and it will go direct without leaving the aspect, holding it through 2012 if Saddam lives that long. An 8:55 birth time is a little too late to get the precise P Moon conjunctions with P Mars for the 1963 imprisonment and the Kuwait invasion, but the aspect would have been there in the months leading up to the events and the P Moon does have appropriate aspects for these and the other major events which I have. Also, there are many other angle aspects which match the life events such as P East Point octile Neptune when Saddam used poison gas on his own people and the Iranian soldiers. The Tikrit P MC had been moving over the natal Sun for nearly two years and was still in orb for the invasion while Saddam’s Baghdad P MC had reached the conjunction with Uranus.
The 8:55 chart also has highly appropriate asteroids on the angles including Winchester and Agamemnon on the MC in the natal chart and P Chaldaea on the IC during the late 1980s and early 1990s. P Chaldaea was on Neptune as well as the IC when the Kurds were gassed. As I mentioned in the Virgo The Mutable Dilemma, three cardinal ingress charts calculated for Baghdad all have Winchester on an angle: Libra and Capricorn 1990 and Aries 1991. Agamemnon allowed his daughter to be sacrificed in his desire to win the Trojan War. The asteroid named for the daughter, Iphigenia, is on P Juno (like Pluto) which is on P Washington which is square asteroid Klytaemnestra, Iphigenia’s mother, in the sixth house and Herbert in the twelfth house. Natal Klytaemnestra opposes natal Herbert within three minutes of arc. The overlapping orbs tie the network of aspects together. Both natal and P Medea, who killed her own children, are on Irakli and Panacea (healing or the need for it), and P Jupiter, and they oppose P George, P Guernica (a city famous for the bombing deaths of civilians), and P Nemesis. Will Saddam, George Herbert, and Washington, DC sacrifice the children of both countries? What are the odds against the two asteroids for Iraq, Chaldaea and Irakli, being progressed on the cusps of the two houses associated with death, the fourth and eighth? Yet, in spite of all of these patterns, the chart could picture the psychological state of the people and their fears do not have to happen on the physical level. How does a rejected and abused child who is named “disaster” learn to love himself and others?
As indicated above, the 8:55 time for Saddam puts the P Moon just past P Mars at the time of the invasion but it is part of a grand cross in fixed signs, on the Baghdad and Tikrit Vertexes so opposite the antivertexes as well as opposite the midpoint of Pluto/MC, and these opposing factors in Taurus-Scorpio are square P Gaea in Leo and natal Ceres, the midpoints of Sun/Moon and Jupiter/MC which are all conjunct in Aquarius. More conventionally, P Moon was still just within orb of a trioctile to the natal Ascendant and it had just started a quincunx to natal Venus. In the natal chart, the Ascendant was conjunct Guernica and Nemesis so P Moon was also trioctile those two asteroids which are now (along with P George) in an opposition to P Jupiter. Nemesis had reached a conjunction to Pluto by the time of the invasion, and the others will move within the one-degree orb within a few months after the invasion. The quotidian angles (which move about a degree a day so they are great for fine-tuning the birth time) also have appropriate aspects for the major events.
The solar arc directed chart for the invasion of Kuwait also has dramatic angle aspects. Arcs are very easy to calculate since you simply add the distance the secondary progressed Sun has moved to everything in the natal chart, so since this Asteroid-World is already much too long, I will only mention a few. Since all factors in arc directions maintain their natal relationship as the whole chart turns like a wheel, the Moon-Mars quincunx to the Ascendant remains a lifetime aspect. Other solar arc directions include the directed Jupiter-Pluto opposition conjunct the MC-IC axis, the directed Moon-Mars conjunction on natal Jupiter-8th house cusp opposite Pluto, directed Uranus square Saturn, and directed Neptune opposite Sun.
Then, last but not least, we can look at Saddam’s prospective chart when it is calculated for Washington, DC. You will remember that George Bush has his natal Jupiter exactly on his Ascendant in Baghdad. Would you believe that Saddam has his natal Jupiter on his Ascendant within one degree in Washington, DC? What are those two men teaching and/or learning about faith, ethics, morals as they confront each other across the world? Traditional astrology would suggest that they will have “good luck” in each other’s capital! Or will they say “My will is God and I have the right to do what I please.”? If we needed more evidence for the 8:55 birth time for Saddam, this chart helps to provide it. P Mars was conjunct the Washington MC within five minutes of arc at the time of the invasion. P local Ascendant at 20 Aries 3 was quincunx P Mars and local MC and P Moon, tying the P Moon to P Mars though the latter two are just over a degree apart. P Saturn holds a lifetime quincunx to the Washington Part of Death and an octile-trioctile to the MC-IC axis. The Washington, DC MC-IC are the degrees I first tried as a natal Ascendant-Descendant for Saddam. They are also the heliocentric nodes of Mars and the natal MC-IC that I had previously chosen for the horoscope of Arabia. This chart is a good illustration of the challenge of rectification. Starting with only a few recent military events in Saddam’s life, it is natural to look for major angle aspects for those events. But we may get a very different perspective when we get the person’s early history and look at locality charts.
I have just read an interesting book which offers a somewhat different view of the coming years though there is certainly some overlap in our ideas. The Astrology of the Four Horsemen by Elizabeth Clare Prophet has just been published, and it clarifies some of the newspaper stories about her prophesies. I was surprised at the amount of technical astrology that was included in the book though I had talked to Murray Steinman on the phone, the man who did much of the research for the book, and in fact I got my chart for the U.S.S.R. from him. Though I agree on the book’s judgment of the best U.S.S.R. chart, I do not agree on their choice of birth charts for the U.S.A. They use a Sagittarius rising chart for the Declaration of Independence as a conception chart and a chart for Washington’s Inauguration set for 1:30 P.M. on April 30, 1789 in N.Y. as a U.S. birth chart. Historical records report that the ceremony was supposed to occur at noon, but was delayed and the oath of office was taken some time between 1 and 1:30 P.M. Prophet writes that she was given the accurate times for both the conception and birth charts by El Morya, one of her spirit communicators. Unfortunately for El Morya’s accuracy, he apparently does not know that the world was still using local apparent time (LAT) rather than local mean time (LMT) in the 1700s.
I have worked sporadically with a possible inaugural chart for the Presidency but have not devoted the time needed to thoroughly check our historical events to feel confident of the precise time of the chart. I would theorize that a variety of early acts such as the Boston Tea Party and the first shot fired at Concord might work as conception charts for the U.S. I think that the declaration of war in July 1775, the chart for the U.S. which is favored by Jim Lewis, is a valid chart for our wars. For our birth as an independent country, I am convinced of the reliability of the Virgo rising Declaration of Independence chart. The Constitution becoming the law of our land is the chart for our legal structure, and the inauguration of George Washington could work for the presidency as an institution. Since our present furor is mostly being choreographed by our current President George, that original inauguration could be useful along with the war chart. Until I have the time to do more work on the inaugural chart, I am using the 1:30 P.M. time given by Prophet.
In her book, Prophet warns against a nuclear first strike by Russia and strongly urges U.S. citizens to build bomb shelters and stock food and water to be able to stay underground for some days. She does not see an atomic war as the end of civilization or life on the planet since she thinks the main target of a Russian first strike would be against our missile silos rather than major cities. She suggests that the U.S.S.R. is secretly still helping Iraq. It is profiting from the world tension and consequent high oil prices as well as getting help from the U.S., Germany, and other countries. She quotes a variety of sources that claim that the U.S.S.R. is still spending a huge amount of money on offensive weapons, but I’m not sure how reliable some of the sources are since they include right-wing U.S. members of the industrial-military establishment and the magazine of Reverend Moon who has his own plans for taking over the world. Information has come out that our CIA has frequently put out disinformation to promote its own agenda, and we have to check our sources with some care, watching for unconscious selective bias or deliberate falsehoods.
Students who are interested in mundane astrology may want to read Prophet’s book since she does offer a variety of charts of countries which are currently in the news and she offers much information about the countries from a variety of sources. The book includes extensive footnotes and references as well as a glossary explaining astrological terms. Prophet uses much wider orbs than I would normally consider but a case can be made for that since she does not use a lot of other factors that I include. The more we add asteroids, extra angles, local angles, midpoints, nodes etc., the more we have to tighten our orbs.
Despite my doubts about Prophet’s fears of Russia, I found her book quite interesting. She offers methods for counteracting the negative forces in the world; mantras, chants, prayers, etc. and seems very sincere in her faith. The book is a good introduction to the principles taught in her church. I was surprised that someone who believes in reincarnation is so adamantly against abortion. If my memory is accurate, Edgar Cayce suggested that in many cases of miscarriage or abortions, no soul ever entered the embryo. Overpopulation is a major problem in the world and too many babies come in to short lives of suffering with parents who cannot take proper care of them. If they would stay a little longer on the next level of life and learn a little more, they might be able to come to better opportunities in this physical world. I think that growth is the name of the game, but I’m in favor of doing it with less suffering if that is possible. Whenever people argue against abortion, I am reminded of a cartoon by Conrad in the Los Angeles Times. It showed then President Reagan looking up and away while a very small child tugged at his pants leg and looked up pleading for help. Reagan was making a gesture to push the child away and saying “Go away. I got you born. Isn’t that enough?”
To conclude with the prospective quake which is scheduled in a few days, I have looked at more charts which might support or throw doubt on the earthquake predicted by Ibn Browning for December 2-3, 1990. I remain doubtful that there will be anything serious in the Midwest (on the New Madrid fault) or in California. Parkfield, CA is overdue, but it is not expected to do much damage. They have had quakes about every 22 years on average, but averages are not always precise. Japan looks like a stronger prospect, but the aspects could indicate the tension over their stock market (which continues to do poorly), or over the increased cost of oil, or over the pressure on them to send support to the forces confronting Saddam, or ??? You will know before you receive this Asteroid-World. The Los Angeles Times had a front page article on the Browning prediction which quoted “experts” who claimed that his theories had been tested and found worthless. The Times also mentioned only New Madrid as Browning’s target area, neglecting to say that he gave Tokyo and the San Andreas fault as alternate possibilities. Then the paper proceeded to indicate that the experts expected quakes before long in Tokyo and Parkfield which is on the San Andreas fault. So they plan to discredit Browning even if a quake comes in the two alternate areas which he mentioned. In their weather forecasts, local papers have confirmed that the December 2-3 period will produce exceptionally high tides so advisories are out for small boats. Browning is said to be ill. It would be rather typical of how the unconscious works if he died on one of the dates of a predicted catastrophe.
In the meantime, I have too much material but I want to leave room for some charts and for another fine contribution on the sources of asteroid names from Seraphita. [Not in the web archives.] Some of the asteroids in her current list have not yet been added to our collection, but I hope they can be calculated before long.