Transits work best in a precession-free framework

[Jim Eshelman]

In the August 1972 issue of American Astrology (the same issue that has one of my most regrettable articles, "Secrets of Mayan Science"), a correspond wrote to "Many Things" asking if anyone had used "time-lag in transits" to test the "two-zodiac" theory. In other words, had anyone bothered to look at whether effects of transits occur consistently after Tropicalists would expect because, if so, that suggests they are work in an aprecessional (I.e., sidereal) framework.

The answer, of course, is that yes, that's been looked at. (And, though this wasn't mentioned, the largest body of proof about timing transits in an aprecessional framework is the work on solar and lunar returns themselves.)

Here is part of Donald Bradley's anonymous answer, giving some hard data:

The subject of time-lag in transits has been dealt with several times in our magazine over the past two decades. Many tropical astrologers nowadays, facing up to the facts, automatically account for precession when pinpointing the partile phase of transits. Lewis Howard's book Astrology of the United States demonstrates quite conclusively that accrued precession since 1776 has a distinct impact on the timing of events in American history (based upon the noon chart for July 4, but equally applicable and provable with the Gemini-rising and Sagittarius-rising charts preferred by others). The national Sun is at 13°08' tropical Cancer or thereabouts. At the moment Pearl Harbor was attacked, transiting Mars was at 15°33' Aries; subtract the 2°18' of accrued precession and you get a virtually precise contact. When President Harding died, transiting Saturn stood at 15°08' Libra; subtract the 2°03' of accrued precession and again you have the aspect on the nose. The great majority of transit-culpable events in our nation's history are clearly sharpened up when the precessional factor isbrought to bear.

We also have a statistical study of the transiting Mars and Saturn aspects to natal Sun in 1,723 persons at the times of their death. The significant excesses were not huge , but did amount to more than three standard deviations[That's not quite 1,000-to-1 - JAE]. The towering fact, however, was that when all transits within 3°00' of partile were plotted in plus and minus frequencies within categories each ten minutes wide, the peak of activity occurred one full degree ahead of the Sun's tropical longitudes. Other tests have been just as conclusive when the samples have been large enough.