Excellent Natal Midpoint Rules, by Robert Hand

[Jim Eshelman]

Jim, the reason you can’t distinguish it the way I can: it is by my understanding of the German schools teachings and others about the symbolism of the AS/MC itself which I have studied relative to my own individual life.

I've studied all that, too, of course. My question was narrower: You offered as proof that this contact was important because specific transits and directions to it marked specific points in your life. I asked how you can tell the midpoint was a factor since the same transits and directions to your natal Neptune would produce the same results and occurred at essentially the same times.

Aside from the theory of what the midpoint might mean or be, how can you tell it was an active factor when your Neptune - the real descriptor of these times - occurred at the same time?

Jim I realize you and have had our disagreements about this issue but like I said before: I am the only one who has lived my life and I think I can distinguish what is more important in my own horoscope, after 40 years of living it.

You are surely the best expert about your own chart

However, we can't say that an astrological factor is or isn't valid by only judging our own chart. That's where everyone of us starts is thinking about an astrological theory, but it can't be the end of it.

Tell you what... I'll take the time to tabulate A/M partile contacts in my nearly a thousand well-timed public figures charts, then start another thread to list them. I'm extremely skeptical that the A/M midpoint is valid at all but don't have tabulated data to show one way or the other. We can then look at the list of famous people and see if there are any conclusions to draw about their characters and the basic nature of their lives. There won't be a lot: For a partile conjunction, opposition, or square of A/M (i.e., of A/M, M/D, D/I, and I/A) there are only 2° out of every 90°, or one chance in 45 of a contact. With ten planets that means that, on average, about two out of every nine people would have a planet in one of these four spots.

[SteveS]

They have to be direct midpoints Jim. Hand specifically said direct midpoints were by far the more important ones. The single most important life event to ever occurr in my lifetime happened when t Pluto was going across my AS/MC = Neptune direct midpoint. It began a cycle 1976-1997 which is still happening. Defintely the cycle started as if it was an angular hit to my MC or AS.

[Jim Eshelman]

Are you only talking about the timing of events? What about character? My main concern is whether these have an effect about who somebody is, not what happens to them. (I might agree with you more for event timing,.)

All four of them are direct midpoints between the Horizon and meridian, and I would consider them directing the points anyway; but, for example, you have cited my Mercury at theAsc/I midpoint before as a similar example.

[SteveS]

Jim asked:

Are you only talking about the timing of events? What about character? My main concern is whether these have an effect about who somebody is, not what happens to them. (I might agree with you more for event timing,.)

Timing of events Jim. All I am saying in examining my 76 years of life, by far, the most dramatic life changing event(s) occurred in my life when t. Pluto = my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. The exact Pluto transits for this timing happened on 11/6/1975; 3/27/1976; 9/3/1976. Transiting Pluto to my Natal Mercury in 1977 & 1978 had very strong mental effects from the after effects from t. Pluto on my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. This appears to me to confirm what Ebertin/Hand is saying about the importance of the AS/MC. Relative to my life/natal my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune is by far one the most sensitive point in my entire Natal, if not the most sensitive, for timing major life changing events for my life..

I have never seen or analyzed any other scope involving a direct midpoint of AS/MC = another planet(s) except London’s mundane 1939 Cansolar where we see a stunning/shocking planetary picture of:
AS/MC 06 Can 51; Moon 07 Can 11; Pluto 06 Can 57; Mars 07 Cap 17; Saturn 06 Ari 57.
I realize this 1939 stunning planetary picture was for the whole world; but, the AS/MC exactly selected London where the bombing began that kick-started WW11. The 1939 London Cansolar is the only chart I have ever seen that clearly predicted a major event involving the AS/MC, and it just so happened it was a major Sidereal Mundane Astrology chart. No other astrological branch has proved to me their methodology proving to me the timing of the beginning of WW11.

I look forward to your new thread you started on the AS/MC. I respect and welcome your research. Thanks

[Veronica]

Jim asked:

Are you only talking about the timing of events? What about character? My main concern is whether these have an effect about who somebody is, not what happens to them. (I might agree with you more for event timing,.)

Timing of events Jim. All I am saying in examining my 76 years of life, by far, the most dramatic life changing event(s) occurred in my life when t. Pluto = my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. The exact Pluto transits for this timing happened on 11/6/1975; 3/27/1976; 9/3/1976. Transiting Pluto to my Natal Mercury in 1977 & 1978 had very strong mental effects from the after effects from t. Pluto on my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. This appears to me to confirm what Ebertin/Hand is saying about the importance of the AS/MC. Relative to my life/natal my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune is by far one the most sensitive point in my entire Natal, if not the most sensitive, for timing major life changing events for my life..

I have never seen or analyzed any other scope involving a direct midpoint of AS/MC = another planet(s) except London’s mundane 1939 Cansolar where we see a stunning/shocking planetary picture of:
AS/MC 06 Can 51; Moon 07 Can 11; Pluto 06 Can 57; Mars 07 Cap 17; Saturn 06 Ari 57.
I realize this 1939 stunning planetary picture was for the whole world; but, the AS/MC exactly selected London where the bombing began that kick-started WW11. The 1939 London Cansolar is the only chart I have ever seen that clearly predicted a major event involving the AS/MC, and it just so happened it was a major Sidereal Mundane Astrology chart. No other astrological branch has proved to me their methodology proving to me the timing of the beginning of WW11.

I look forward to your new thread you started on the AS/MC. I respect and welcome your research. Thanks

Really, wow, that's so uncanny......it really makes it seem as if the Universe builds some things (our chart) just to blow them up hum? Why else would there be such a sensitive trigger point that would be forced under transit to unfold in some uncharacteristic way? Hmm Lots to think about here. My universe doesn't operate that way from what I have experienced and seen in the people around me.
Weird too that that London scope has the same midpoints as me!!
You mean the beginning of WWII for the United Kingdom right? Other places were already knee deep in the horrors of Fascism and Hatred from my understanding.

[Jim Eshelman]

Timing of events Jim. All I am saying in examining my 76 years of life, by far, the most dramatic life changing event(s) occurred in my life when [etc.]

Then we might not be as far apart as it sometimes seems (though I still have no certainty that this particular midpoint even exists). The eventish approach simply doesn't interest me a 20th as much as understanding the fundamental structures through which astrology works, and understanding individual character. (The predictive or event issue is far less interesting to me.)

Your A/M = Neptune is like my A/M = Mercury. There is no way in hell I could ever tell when something is aspecting my A/M midpoint and whether there is an effect because whatever is hitting that point is simultaneously hitting my Mercury - and Mercury determines the nature of the event. In your case, with your Neptune a little more than a degree from A/M, it might be possible to discern whether the orb was closer to Neptune or to the midpoint when the exact events hit. That would at least suggest which factor was more active and critical in the timing.

t. Pluto = my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. The exact Pluto transits for this timing happened on 11/6/1975; 3/27/1976; 9/3/1976.

Was this Pluto to the midpoint or to Neptune? Was there an exact event here? When exactly did that occur?

[Jim Eshelman]

t. Pluto = my direct midpoint of AS/MC = Neptune. The exact Pluto transits for this timing happened on 11/6/1975; 3/27/1976; 9/3/1976.

Was this Pluto to the midpoint or to Neptune? Was there an exact event here? When exactly did that occur?

I've now had time to answer this. These were the transits to your Neptune itself, not the midpoint, right? Were there any comparable events right at the hit? Any others centered on Pluto's transit to the midpoint instead?

The exact t Pl = r A/M transits were 12/24/75, stationary a few days later at 17°18' Virgo 0°08' from the midpoint, 2/5/76, and 10/4/76 (with a Sun-Pluto conjunction on the midpoint the same day); then back for another, final pass 5/25/77, stationary 0°12' off the midpoint 6/21/77, then a final exact crossing 7/18/77.

[Jim Eshelman]

Transits and directions to my Mercury have always been as important as to anything else (other than luminaries and angles having louder noise) but I haven't noticed those to Mercury having more or exceptional importance (despite the strong presence of Mercury in my nature).

The first major Solar Arc direction to my Mercury was directed (also progressed) Sun conjunct Mercury in late 1979. That was a busy time with much in motion (also the time Pluto was transiting conjunct my Sun, with this highlighted in the SSR). It was extra Mercurial in several ways, including new areas of study, being hired by Mattel to write the Jeane Dixon project, and leading just over a year later to Neil Michelsen offering me a job. The exact progression to Mercury was my birthday in 1979 (progressed Sun had crossed A/M in July). Nothing more exact than this came out of the period (a lot of stuff stretched over several months).

The next Solar Arc to Mercury was d Ascendant conjunct it in October 1999. That was a strange "in between" time. I was doing lots of Mercury stuff - editing a journal, generating a lot of small-press (and small size) publications, translating some important old Hebrew texts. I'd shut down my law practice over two years earlier, AK and I had been split for three years, I was living off savings from the law practice and mostly unemployed (doing small temp gigs here and there). Very involved in online computer support, getting awards from Microsoft - as I said, LOTS of Mercury stuff. It was the next phase of my life (during which things changed) but I can't say it was life-changing in any other sense. In terms of the main momentum of my life, it was more of a lull of a few years between a prior phase and an eventual phase. (Directed MC squared Mercury a few months later, in May 2000. Mostly the same phase.)

[Jim Eshelman]

Switching to transits, Pluto's conjunction with my Mercury was an unusually critical time beginning in December 1987. It's impossible to overstate the importance of this time since it was also the climax of the biggest concentration of transits ever. That is, while the events clearly fit Pluto's transit to my Mercury (which was also on SSR angle that year), the bigger deal was Uranus transiting my IC to the minute of arc exactly when it semi-squared Pluto - and the same factors had been hit by a supernova on my MC/Zenith a few months earlier. Big deal stuff!

So your sense of magnitude of the event - what you described above - clearly fits, although it was also all on SSR MC (I think that was the angle) and compounded for multiple 0°00' contacts all at the same time. I set out on the biggest creation of my life thus far. Pluto went back and forth over the next almost two years.

OTOH transiting Neptune's conjunction with my Mercury in September 1962 was less dramatic (perhaps because of my age). I was just entering second grade. There were other relevant things when that transit wasn't very close and fell on SLR angles, but nothing of any note around the time it was exact.

Transiting Uranus conjoined my Mercury in late October 1977. I'm sure my stud of astrology was surging but the big transition events were before and after. (Came to LA two years earlier, other big changes started two years later.) That may be about when TNIA came out, and I think it was a year before AK and I got the house on Manhattan. Surely bursting with new interests and studies and continuing to meet new people in the SoCal astrology scene, but nothing precise. It was the normal flow of the river. (It did come back a year later. I'm not sure which year I first attended the October-timed Southwest Astrology Conference, SWAC, that was one of my astrological "homes" for many years.)

[Jim Eshelman]

The biggest event around transiting Neptune's conjunction with my Mercury was much more an expression of Neptune transiting my Saturn. During a tonsillectomy I bled to death for a while. The event was minimized by everyone and repercussions seemed small at the time then unfolded across many years of my life. (This isn't the time to try to put all that into writing. The boy who died wasn't the boy who woke up, but that wouldn't be evident for a while.) In any case, out of a year of boring, simple lunar returns, the SLR for that particular months leaps out dramatically with enough individual stuff to write a book about! (One chart.) This included a foreground 0°07' conjunction of transiting Neptune to natal Saturn (but my natal benefics all three at 100% angularity strength).

Here are the SLR positions as a mundoscope, with longitudes given after:

23°05' H12 - t Venus - 6°16' Ari [EP-a 8°06' Ari, 0°56' in RA]
23°30' H6 - r Mercury - 17°21' Lib
26°48' H6 - t Neptune - 14°50' Lib
27°10' H6 - r Saturn - 14°57' Lib
28°42' H6 - r Venus - 1°53' Sco
29°12' H3 - r Uranus - 3°20' Can
29°38' H3 - r Jupiter - 3°37' Can
------------------ [Angles: MC 3°49' Cap, Asc 24°06' Ari]
2°34' H10 - t Saturn - 5°03' Cap

22°45' Can - t Mars
24°06' Ari - SLR Asc


You can read the aspects off the above, but here they are spelled out.

t Neptune co r Saturn 0°07'
r Jupiter-Uranus co 0°17'
t Venus op r Mercury 0°25' M
r Venus-Uranus sq 0°29' M
r Venus-Jupiter sq 0°56' M
t Venus-Saturn sq 1°13'
t Saturn op r Jupiter 1°26'
r Venus-Saturn co 1°33' M
t Saturn sq r Uranus 1°43'
t Neptune co r Venus 1°54' M
r Saturn-Uranus sq 2°02' M
r Mercury-Saturn co 2°24'
t Neptune sq r Uranus 2°24'
r Jupiter-Saturn sq 2°29' M
t Neptune co r Mercury 2°31'
t Venus sq r Jupiter 2°39'
t Neptune sq r Jupiter 2°50' M
t Venus sq r Uranus 2°56'

[SteveS]

Jim asked:

Was this Pluto to the midpoint or to Neptune? Was there an exact event here? When exactly did that occur?
To Neptune.

I don’t know how to calculate with SF a list of an exact transit to the exact AS/MC. There was not one exact event, there were several events over the years t. Pluto was partile cnj my r Neptune which altered/transformed the entire course of my conscious/philosophical life. The first event started with a profound paranormal event which put me on a complete new life direction, philosophically. It started a new life of profound personal initiation for me with certain books which found me. Definitely, it was colored with the sign Virgo/Books/ certain details. By far, with all the timing events which have happened in my life, t Pluto to my Neptune was the most important for my entire life, using 76 years of life as hindsight to analyze my life as a whole. This Pluto transit energized my soul with things that have absorbed my thinking thoughts for life sense it happened. I contribute this fact in the context of my entire life to my r Neptune being involved with my AS/MC as a direct midpoint, I have found no other astrological component other than the AS/MC to explain to me WHY this is so. I don’t know the exact time when the paranormal event happened, except it happened within the time frame when t Pluto was partile cnj my r Neptune. Also, I have found no other clear astrological explanation that explains to me WHY I was born and lived next to a Drive-Inn (Albertville, Al), other than the AS/MC = Neptune d, and started my Movie/Theater career when I was 6 years old. No different than London’s 1939 Cansolar AS/MC being directly involved with the start of WW11 with the AS/MC profound malefic aspects. In my mind it was London's 1939 Cansolar AS/MC which selected London as the center for the start of WW11, no different when look for locational issues, we look at the angles. At one time with our long association together on this forum, I think you said the extra strength to my r Neptune may be explained by its partile 90 to my Vertex, but I think you said you had no chart experiences/examples for this possibility. But definitely, my commercial theater career has always had a strong sense of destiny (Vertex) involved with my psyche. Thanks Jim.

[Jim Eshelman]

I have found no other astrological component other than the AS/MC to explain to me WHY this is so... At one time with our long association together on this forum, I think you said the extra strength to my r Neptune may be explained by its partile 90 to my Vertex, but I think you said you had no chart experiences/examples for this possibility. But definitely, my commercial theater career has always had a strong sense of destiny (Vertex) involved with my psyche.

I'd forgotten that - and yes, you do have Neptune on the Southpoint (upper square to the Vertex) within a few minutes. (As the upper square it's even going to have a 10th House / MC / Zenith leaning). The Vertex system does seem effective in natal charts, so I think this is a sound theory.

But this was also one of the most astrologically rich ages, just as it is for everyone. The period from ages 27 to 30 includes the completion of one progressed Moon orbit, the Saturn return, and (usually between them, but varying depending on exactly when one is born) Pluto's transit to natal Neptune. Everyone goes through all of these and, accordingly, most people find this age 27-30 zone pretty dramatic and life-changing.

You also had other powerful things going on in your chart that were unique to you. Concurrent with Pluto transiting your Neptune, transiting Neptune conjoined your Moon - a whole lotta more Neptune!

[SteveS]

I hear you Jim. Hell, if it had not been my start with the Cosmobiologist Schools, I never would have known anything about the AS/MC. It was Lyse thread with Rings input that actually made me go back and look closely at all of my outher planet transits, and when I saw Pluto on my Neptune, I said: there it is again my AS/MC dovetailing what was taught about the AS/MC with the Germain schools. The older I get and the closer to the end of this life, it seems the more I see through the looking glass of my Natal the sequences/events of my life. I have dreams about my life passing through my mind and then waking-up and realizing---my life is still going on....

[Jim Eshelman]

I have deleted a post half of which was a belligerent attack. This has never been acceptable here and I will continue to delete every post that attacks a member of this forum. The person who posted it has done some form of outright attack in every post for months and, regrettably, probably will be permanently removed in the near future for this persistent, recurring pattern.

[Veronica]

I hear you Jim. Hell, if it had not been my start with the Cosmobiologist Schools, I never would have known anything about the AS/MC. It was Lyse thread with Rings input that actually made me go back and look closely at all of my outher planet transits, and when I saw Pluto on my Neptune, I said: there it is again my AS/MC dovetailing what was taught about the AS/MC with the Germain schools. The older I get and the closer to the end of this life, it seems the more I see through the looking glass of my Natal the sequences/events of my life. I have dreams about my life passing through my mind and then waking-up and realizing---my life is still going on....

I too have learned so much about myself by going back through my old SSRs and especially my Lunars. It has been so illuminating to read my old journal of childhood, which I meticulously dated and wrote in before bedtime. I have been able to break free of unhealthy conditioned responses, breathe and take the time to make educated choices not based off of fear, anger or confusion. Honestly in studying my own natal and charts I have wished I didnt need to stop and go to work because I was so engrossed in the discovery at the time and it seems so much more important then making money.

[SteveS]

I could not agree with you more V. It took me years learning my Natal, but when I got to know myself through my Natal--- a higher understanding was allowed for the WHYs in my life that I did not understand, which allowed me to make better life choices. Realization was allowed which helps navigate one's life with more enlighenment, and one's solunars become a companion helping us see/understand things that are before us. Truly, Astrology is the Royal Art, and you were born with alot of natural art inside your being.