Firebrace & the U.S. Chart

[Jim Eshelman]

I have just finished reading an article I'd somehow missed in the past (having retrieved one case of old American Astrology issues from storage). In the July 1963 issue, Brigadier Firebrace wrote an article, "Birth of a Nation," in which he tested a series of different proposed U.S. horoscopes for July 4, 1776 using primarily Sidereal techniques. I found it interesting that his method of scoring these was exactly the one I invented for SMA, viz., a maximum of 3 points plus or minus for a chart, with an option of 0 if there is no basis for awarding points.

The events he used were start and end of WW I and WW II for the U.S., and the bombing of Hiroshima. (BTW this is similar to the study he did of the British chart and Sidereal ingresses in his small book, Wars in the Sidereal.) For each chart, and for each event, he examined:

Sidereal Solar Return (SSR)
Progressed SSR (PSSR)
Solar Quotidian (SQ)
Sidereal Lunar Return (SLR)
Regressed SSR (RSSR)
Regressed SQ (i.e, SQ of the RSSR)

He examined five proposed birth times, plus two "dummy" times for comparing random scores. The proposed times were taken from an AFA bulletin devoted to different USA birth times. Here are the scores each proposed birth time got by this ranking:

2:17 AM - 8
3:02 AM - 11
12:20 PM - 53
2:00 PM - 13
4:50 PM - 7
Dummy X - 9
Dummy Z -4

The winner is absolutely clear. The proposed time of 12:20 PM had 53 points and the next closest was 13 points (a fourth of the value). - As a check, he applied a common statistical technique of tossing out the single highest and lowest score for each chart so that a random extreme didn't overwhelm the whole. After doing this, the winner was, again, the 12:20 PM chart with 36 points, the second closest being 7 points.

The 12:20 PM time (sometimes called the Hazelrigg time) was further rectified by Llewellyn George (I'm not sure if that was with or without young Bradley's help) to 12:14:42 PM, and is the one I use - a five-minute shift. But it's the same chart regardless.

[Jim Eshelman]

I remain pretty confident of the further rectified time mentioned above. As a test, I thought I'd run the lunar returns for an event that happened soon after Firebrace's test was published - President Kennedy's assassination.

For Washington, DC the prior SLR occurred October 27, 1963, 10:56:32 AM EST.

23°11' Vir r. Saturn
24°37' Vir MC

21°31' Gem r. Sun
21°46' Sag EP

29°37' Tau r. Mars
0°48' Vir r. Neptune
2°58' Sag Asc

The U.S. natal Sun-Saturn and Mars-Neptune were both angular, which is exactly the right symbolism.

The intervening Demi-SLR occurred November 8, 1963, 11:15:04 PM EST.

21°11' Lib t. Neptune
21°13' Can Asc
21°48' Lib t. Sun
22°31' Cap t. Saturn

Yikes, I'm not sure you can do better than that without dropping Mars in the middle, too! Oh, yeah, r. Pluto is on WP at 6°35' Capricorn and the WP was 7°52' Capricorn. Close enough.

Oh, for the Mars? Try this: The USA SSR occurred July 8, 1963, 11:10:49 AM EDT.

24°51' Leo t. Mars
24°54' Leo Asc

166°32' RA of EP
166°59' RA of t. Pluto

And this is, I think, the strangest coincidence of all. It's not that the symbolism is so perfect, but the math is almost incalculably unlikely. The SSR had Moon 12°04' Capricorn. Between July and November, it progressed another 5°. For the assassination:

17°01' Capricorn SQ Moon
17°01' Capricorn t. Moon

(!!!!!)