Murder (research article, Garth Allen)

[Jim Eshelman]

MURDER WILL OUT!
by Garth Allen American Astrology February 1957


[Preliminary remarks on the word "happenstance" as perhaps referring to astrology's role in life: Psychologist studies show heredity and environment account for 70% of what they could find in a person, and were puzzled what constituted the other 30%. Garth Allen suggests this is where astrology is completing the gap.]

The Climate of Murder
There appears to be universal agreement among astrologers as to the rough classification of planetary natures into benefic and malefic categories. Likewise with regard to the mechanics of aspectivity and the structural dynamics of a horoscope (by which we mean the differences in intensity according to mundane position). Partly for the benefit of our readers and partly because we are hopeful of ultimately sparking the interest of psychologists and sociologists in astrology as a key to their "happenstance" riddle, let us consider the horoscope of 42 murderers in the light of only the most general statistics of the sample.

We are not concerned, for the present, with the subject of murder per se, inasmuch as our purpose is to arrive at a broad description of the "psychological climate" in which the commission of murder sometime during the lifetime was a matter of "psychological weather." From the impersonal perch, a psychiatrist views murder generally as a solution to a personal problem, even in those dreadful instances of psychopathic compulsion. To a scientist, a psychoneurosis is a defense mechanism of the ego, a protective device intentionally created and maintained by the psyche to shield itself from the world that otherwise cannot be coped with. This is why the layman is often puzzled when he peruses the literature of psychology and notes what seems strangely like a patronizing, even affectionate, attitude toward abnormalities on the part of the doctors. The human psyche that takes the path of least resistance finds haven in neurosis, seeks refuge from frightening reality in psychosis.

It is probably safe to say that all murder is the result of the breakdown of what is called frustration tolerance, in one way or another, even in cases where the victim himself was not the ego's primary obstacle...

[JAE interjection: The above might be the most important sentence in this entire study. Obviously, people are not going to commit murder just because they have an abundance of the aspects and angularities highlighted in the article. It is always tempting to readers to go, "Oh, a study of murderers or suicides or alcoholics or people with throat cancer... I have those aspects, so..." But that isn't the right way to use any of these studies. For decades I have taken the highlighted frequent and infrequent aspects and angularities in this article as showing weakness or strength in tolerating frustration. As such, it is enormously valuable in day-to-day natal horoscopy.]

...Whether the deed was premeditated over a long period, or occurred in a moment of blind rage, or came about as a result of scattered wits in an emotional emergency, from the coldly analytic standpoint frustration is still a key factor. And this is what we are driving at in distinguishing the "climate" of murderdom from the "stormy weather" or the crisis itself. The natal horoscope symbolizes the "climate," while transits and progressions govern the changing weather conditions within this climate.

So when we find an imbalance in the distribution of planets in the horoscopes of murderers, and hyperactivity of certain aspect combinations, it is probably safe to say that these statistical excesses are symptomatic of a weak frustration tolerance. [Bingo! - JAE] Interpretations can be narrowed down, of course, but let us stick for the present to these broadest of considerations, and not concern ourselves with the dissection of the individual charts in the light of their stories...

[Jim Eshelman]

Three bar chart illustrations with this article clearly demonstrate that there are some uneven distributions in our sample, both of planetary position and aspectivity. Consider, first, Figure #1 which simply shows the number of times each of the planets is found in the three "grounds" of the natal horoscope - F signifies foreground, M and B the middleground and background, respectively. For the sake of visual comparison, in the drawings the groups of bars are set off against each other for what light they shed on the theory of polarities. (Jupiter versus Saturn; Venus against Mars, etc.)



[Discussion of the definitions of the "grounds" vs. traditional A/S/C nomenclature. He makes clear that he is measuring these along the Prime Vertical, so these were indeed mundoscope calculations. "The eastern foreground, for instance, is a geometric zone of the sky, known as a lune, exactly thirty degrees wide, ranging fifteen degrees either direction from the tangent which is the horizon," e.g.]

Planetary intensity reaches its peaks of expression at the angular cusps, which mark the centers of the foregrounds, whereas influences are least potent at the cadent cusps rather than in the centers of what are usually called the cadent houses. This situation stands out conspicuously in all similar statistical tabulations.

The greatest departure for normalcy of distribution in our murderers' charts is the high frequency of Mars in the foreground tapering off to relative scarcity in the background. This is so in keeping with the first principles of astrology as to need no comment whatever. Notice how the three malefics, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune, favor the foreground and shy away from the background, whereas the reverse is the case with the three benefics, Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus. The skewness of the distributions of Saturn and Uranus is hardly engaging; but the tiering of the bars (what the statistician calls "correlation of rank") in keeping with astrological concepts is surely significant.

There is a slight tendency for the lights to avoid the background, but this may not have real significance, inasmuch as there is no prejudice for either the foreground or middleground, or put otherwise, there is no "rheostat effect" where the mundane placements of the Sun and Moon are concerned. The positions of Mercury and Pluto also appear rather random, but not so, Pluto, the planet popularly linked with misanthropy. In fact, Figure #2 I a summary bar chart showing the total number of times the planets are found in the natal grounds under a malefic-benefic classification. Although Pluto is probably as truly "neutral" as Mercury, in the traditional sense of the word, its role in the climatology of crime is unquestionable, so we have lumped Pluto with the "regular" malefics. To balance the totals, of course, we have included Mercury with the regular benefics.



More adequate labels for these groups, then, would be "Social Planets" and "Antisocial Planets," for, after all, this is what the benefic-malefic concepts of horoscopy really boil down to in everyday terms. In Freudian language, it can be said that the malefics symbolize the Id forces, the benefics the Ego forces, in the organization of the human psyche. [JAE: ?!?!] In the less colorful concepts of psychology and sociology, the benefics represent adjustment, the malefics maladjustment, in the framework of social awareness and personality development. How conspicuous it is that astrology is truly the key to the enigma of happenstance, the "missing link" in the modern idiographic sciences!

[Jim Eshelman]

The student of long standing, naturally, will consider the foreground treatment of mundane distributions only confirmation of commonplace knowledge, so may have more curiosity about Figure #3 which shows the relative strength of aspectivity among the more variable planetary pairs. No numerical figures have been indicated on the diagram, although the lengths of the bars accurately reflect the comparative strength of two planet combinations in our sample of murderers' nativities, with two provisions. First, the Venus-Mars bar was much too long to show fully, hence the firebreak on the drawing. The other provision is that for every aspect combination, the two closest aspects were ignored so that the extreme cases, by the sheer weight of their extremity, would not affect or exaggerate the ratings of 95% of the sample...

[In other words, he was ranking each aspect numerically according to closeness of orb, probably using the sine curve tables published in Bradley's Picking Winners - this in lieu of simple "head count" of the aspects. Were there to be, say, one Sun-Pluto aspect that was 0°05' wide, its high score would be so high as to falsify the overall presence of Sun-Pluto-ness in the overall set, so a common statistical method - drop the two highest - was even-handedly applied to neutralize this possibility. But that's not the whole story. Remarks he makes later (below) suggest that they are either something like chi-square calculations derived from the interrelationships of the entire set, or are direct "odds" representations derived from those. I regret I never asked Gary Duncan exactly what was done, since he is probably the person who designed the methodology. - JAE]



It can be seen that there is such an excess of Venus-Mars aspectivity in our sample that even when the two closest Venus-Mars aspects are dropped from the array, the statistical rating is still so great the possibility of its being "pure chance" is reasonably ruled out. There are several other planetary combinations with highly significant ratings, such as Moon-Saturn, the Sun to Mars and Neptune, Mercury to the two outermost planets, and Mars-Uranus. The combinations with lowest ratings are of nearly as much interest to the astrologer as those with highest. For example, the rarity of Moon-Venus and Mercury-Jupiter formations is just what would be expected by even the veriest tyro in astrology. The big surprise, in terms of popular expectations, is the shortage of Sun-Pluto activity. Of the 32 "closed circuit" aspect combinations dealt with, Sun-Pluto aspects have the lowest of all values!

The statistical technique making possible the exhibit of Figure #3 is also applicable to many other research enterprises, particularly the study of transits, progressions, and the like. Its chief advantage is that the ratings achieved are not based upon arbitrary scales set up beforehand, but are couched in numerical terms construable as "odds." For example, in our 40 (scratching two extremes) charts there is as much Venus-Mars aspectivity as would normally be found in a random group of 380 other persons. Incidentally, by not dropping the two extreme cases, the result become 2,920 other persons. In other words, in terms of closeness to partile, the accumulated strength of Venus-Mars forces normally found among 2,920 horoscopes in a cross section of the population is "crammed into the psyches" of our 42 murderers. The relative power of any other planetary pair can be expressed in similar manner.

We must caution the newer student about the folly of jumping to the conclusion that Venus-Mars, Sun-Neptune, Mars-Uranus, and the like, are "the aspects of a murderous disposition" or some such notion. In fact, except for Venus-Mars, which figures so prominently in erotic crimes, where the individual case is concerned the real "offender" may be a pattern nor mirrored outstandingly in our bar-charts. Which is why, naturally, we stressed the difference between the "climate" and the "weather" of murder. Aside from the event of murder itself, the common denominator where personality is concerned is plainly the weakness of the frustration tolerance of our subjects. Approached from this angle, the longest and the shortest bars in Figure #3 are almost too easy to understand.

Doctors, social works and psychologists have in astrology a Wonderland of scientific discovery to explore, if they but knew it. Astrologers owe it not only to themselves but to the whole human race to make astrology so intellectually attractive that scientific people would lose their compunctions about investigating it.

[Jim Eshelman]

Jim can you explain what the 'climate' and 'weather' terms mean? Also why should beginners be advised to not jump to conclusions with this data? Is it because if other natal energies contradict a low frustration tolerance?

"Climate" refers to the permanent backdrop, and "weather" to what's happening at the moment. Los Angeles doesn't have the climate for snow so, no matter what weather conditions come through, it won't snow; but it could happen elsewhere, that has an inherent capacity for snow.

So climate refers to the potential innate in the individual - genetics, environment, natal chart factors - while weather refers to current conditions such as transits and progressions.

The "not jumping to conclusions" is that this stuff doesn't literally show that someone will commit murder, or even whether they are capable of it. It shows other things that feed into that possibility, such as their ability (or inability) to tolerate heightened frustration.