Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

"Florence Maybrick" was once a famous and infamous name, both in England and the United States. She was convicted of murdering her husband, sentenced to death, instead served 15 years in prison, and emerged from what must have been a horrid, inconceivably hard experience, to write a book and tour a bit professing her innocence.

I'm posting this now both for general interest and because of one stunning lunar return that is a curio and rarity of great interest to me.

She was born Florence Chandler in Mobile, AL on September 3, 1862. When Edward Lyndoe examined her chart and her life events in detail a century later, in the June 1962 issue of American Astrology, he was able to track a contemporary report of her birth time, allegedly attributed to her, but badly reported: It had already been converted to GMT, as 11:50 AM GMT. To convert to standard time in Mobile, he subtracted six hours and called it 5:50 AM CST. That makes enough sense except that Mobile was still on Local Mean Time in 1862. If her birth were, indeed, 11:50 AM GMT from any genuine reporting source, it would have been the awkward time of 5:57:50 AM LMT, a highly unlikely was for a time to have been reported, especially in 1862. I'd bet fifty cents that her time was simply reported (or remembered by her) as 6 AM, which shifts this only a couple of minutes.

For this small difference, I find the chart quite credible, including transiting Pluto partile square her local MC when she was sentenced to death.

She married James Maybrick, a modestly wealthy cotton merchant, and they eventually moved to England and settled near Aigburth, which is close to Liverpool. Wikipedia gives Aigburth as 53N22, 2W57, while Liverpool is 53N25, 2W55. I've used Liverpool for all the looking.

It's easy to find most of the details of her story (Wikipedia has a fine enough summary). They were married July 27, 1881 in London, and had two children. For our purposes, her husband died May 11, 1889 in their home near Liverpool, she was arrested for the murder three days later and, after conviction, sentenced to death July 31, 1889. While the historic record marks her a murderer, there remains sufficient question of this to make it a valid question: Did she do it?

In her natal horoscope, I am most struck with the fact that she had the character of one to whom money, comfort, and social dignity would be natural - though she wasn't so well-behaved as to say that actual dignity mattered so much to her.

For the first of that, I note her Sun rising (and exactly on EP) in Leo, closely trine Moon in Sagittarius. For the latter part, I note the only other foreground planet is Uranus near MC, its closest aspect being a near-partile sextile from Mars.

Historic reports suggest she had a perfectly lovely and auspicious marriage by the standards of the day, which ignored the facts of her at least occasionally being beaten and given little stature in the household. These conditions also match the chart. Near the end, she began having affairs and didn't work very hard at hiding them from her husband. (This would be consistent with all the above astrological factors, reinforced by a Venus-Mars trine sextile her culminating Uranus.) In Liverpool, local Ascendant squared her Venus, also. (And she was 18, with a 42-year-old husband who took arsenic to boost his "vitality," as they then called it; and he had many affairs while travelling, so it was more or less the rule of their household.)

For her husband's death, she has a single transit of note: Jupiter partile conjunct her Moon in Sagittarius. This cannot be taken to mean that she benefitted through, say, his inheritance and new freedom in her life, because three days later (when the aspect was even closer) she was arrested for his murder, tried, convicted, and imprisoned - losing everything, including permanently losing connection with her two infant children. All of these other facts are so at odds with a Jupiter transit to Moon that I'm left only able to say that - whether she killed him or not - her experience when he died was of enormous relief and gratitude. For the rest, Pluto was already (barely) within partile orb of square her local MC for the 6 AM LMT birth time. It stayed there (and became exact in the middle) through her trial that climaxed two months later, and was in about half-degree square to her MC for her sentencing.

I don't know if she killed him. I'm pretty sure she felt enormous relief and freedom at his death, and was in conditions that might have pushed her to murder. (She also had a partile progressed Sun-Jupiter conjunction, BTW.) Her natal chart isn't especially the chart of a murderer (especially since her Sagittarius Moon would have favored cutting implements, as so many cases show, rather than the poison she was accused of using - poison her husband was already taking on his own initiative for medicinal purposes).

What really motivated me to post this chart, though, is her lunar return for his death. Not her Demi-SLR of May 4, with a partile Moon-Jupiter opposition across the horizon and a middleground Sun-Saturn partile square. No, her full SLR that occurred two weeks earlier.

It occurred April 20, 1889, 8:21:21 PM UT, Liverpool. I looked at this chart... my eyes immediately went to obvious patterns... it looked so familiar, like I had already seen it many times. And then the fog cleared and I realized: This SLR is the birth chart of Adolf Hitler!

Hitler was born April 20, 1889, 6:30 PM, in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria. This is 5:38 PM in England, less than three hours from Florence Maybrick's SLR for her husband's death. Because of the difference in longitude, the Ascendants are pretty close. Hitler's Asc was 3°30' Libra, while that of Maybrick's SLR was 18°54' Libra. This difference brought the most acute part of Hitler's planets closer to the angles: Venus conjoins Mars within 0°11' on Descendant, square Saturn. (It Hitler's natal chart, this is a primary configuration, but less angular.)

I find this marvelous and fascinating.

Now, turning to the chart itself, it's the clearest sign that she as the murderer, though I have to admit it's also consistent with her being a victim of another person killing her husband, and then the ordeal she underwent. Just above Descendant - in the 7th house of husbanding! - are Venus, Mars, Pluto, and Neptune, the first three foreground and (mundanely) inseparable:

Mars 8°51' above Dsc
Venus 8°37' above Dsc
Pluto 9°36' above Dsc
Neptune 13°53' above Dsc (not foreground)

Moon and Jupiter are in 0°01' conjunction! Her natal Pluto is ecliptically minutes from Descendant, but it doesn't hold up mundanely: It is 11° below the horizon. However, transiting Saturn is 1°22' from square Ascendant, and is itself square her natal Pluto. There are severely separative indications.

The angular transiting Venus-Mars conjunction squares her middleground natal Venus within minutes. This (remember) was on her local natal Ascendant:

23°06' Can r Venus
23°16' Ari t Mars
23°19' Lib SLR Asc
23°27' Ari t Venus

The loss of her husband is all over this chart, and there are signs she wasn't entirely broken-hearted - but there are also signs of a lot of heartbreak. We can see "murder of husband" in several ways. What intrigues me is that I can't say for sure, from the charts, whether she did it. In some ways she seems as much a victim as he.

Her husband, James Maybrick, was born October 24, 1838 in Liverpool, time unknown.

His place in history was long secured by his murder, but it is now not his only claim to fame. Maybrick is one of the people on short list of conceivably having been Jack the Ripper! (This is based on things he wrote in his diary, which however might be a hoax.)

His natal chart has a Libra Sun and Sagittarius Moon - remarkably, Moon at noon on his date of birth being 15° Sagittarius, the degree of Florence's Moon and a strong indication of their attraction. One must immediately note, also, that it is a typical mark of murderers who prefer blades and do a great deal of cutting.

He has a partile Venus-Pluto opposition, which matches much that is known of Maybrick's story, and also would be consistent with the Ripper. He has a moderate-orbed Mars-Saturn square.

Comparing his chart to Florence's, the sexual attraction is enormous. James' Venus-Pluto square is on her Mars within about 2°, their Moons are in the same sign and probably in orb of conjunction. His Uranus opposes her Sun and EP, so he easily caught her attention as something new and exciting, opening vast options to her.

Examining transits at his death, Uranus had opposed his Pluto in the recent past. But that's it. Without a birthtime, no other transits appear.

Since we know he died, something must show it - obviously a birth time would help a lot. It's hard to miss the Mars-Neptune conjunction at 8° Taurus when he died, and this surely was triggering something important somewhere / somehow.

On the day of his final SSR, nothing stands out until we compare it to his natal planets and discover that SSR Venus exactly conjoined his Saturn at 5° Scorpio. This is consistent with a theory that 8° Taurus-Scorpio was one of the angular axes of his final SSR.

Since his Moon was near Florence's Moon, his final SLR was also the same day as Hitler's birth and had the partile Venus-Mars conjunction square Saturn (which, however, made no aspect to his natal planets). Neptune was 2° from opposite his Saturn, which could well have been angular for death by poisoning (again, highlighting the 5-8° Taurus-Scorpio region).

There is no way that natal, SSR, progressed natal, or SQ Moons could have been in that sensitive degree range so, if anything was there for him, it would have been an angle, probably a Solar Return angle.

What was going on with James during the Jack the Ripper murders? As examined in Sidereal Mundane Astrology, Chapter 26, the "Canonical Five" occurred in London between August 31, 1888 (3:40 AM) and November 11, 1888. We can use the first of these as an "inaugurating event" to see what, if anything, can be seen in his chart without a birth time. - Notice BTW that it is nearly Florence's birthday.

That night, Uranus was 2° shy of his Venus-Pluto and probably wouldn't have been effective unless on an angle, e.g., of a lunar return.

Jupiter exactly conjoined his natal Saturn, and aspect known for "slate wiped clean" or relief from unshakable psychological stress. Mars was 2° shy of square his Mars, which wouldn't have been of any importance unless, say, it fell on a lunar return angle. - It was the night of his Demi-SLR, but we can't know what that said without a birth time.

All of the murders occurred under his 1887 SSR except the last one. (They were all in August and September 1888). After his late October birthday, there was one more Jack murder, November 11. Without a birth time, I have no astrological evidence he was involved, but would be newly intrigued if a time arose that put Uranus to his Venus-Pluto on the angles of an SLR covering August 31, 1888.

A final Solar Return with 8° Taurus rising produces an exact progressed Moon-Mars opposition on the day of his death, and puts transiting Saturn on the SQ MC. It is the only chart that places 8° Taurus or Scorpio on his SSR angle and also has any matching SSR progressions or transits for the day he died.

That chart has a Sun of 8°34'54" Libra. Were he born with this Sun longitude, his birth would have been 9:48:23 PM LMT, October 24, 1838, Liverpool, England. Let's call it 9:48 PM LMT and not be snots about theoretical seconds.

For his death this now gives a final Solar Return with Neptune opposite Venus along the horizon, atop his natal Saturn on Descendant. A partile transiting Mars-Neptune conjunction is on SSR Ascendant for his death: All a pretty picture of death by poisoning and betrayal, perhaps by a wife. And, as already mentioned, the SQ has a same-day-exact Moon-Mars opposition plus transiting Saturn on MC. His final SLR (the Hitler chart) has the Venus-Mars conjunction rising (where Florence's had it setting). Mundanely it is a Mars-Sun-Mercury-Venus conjunction rising and Neptune nearby, even more of a mark of being intentionally "done in." His final Demi-SLR has Saturn EXACTLY rising, square Sun. (Saturn widely opposes his Neptune across the horizon: More poison.)

For his marriage, his SSR has a Sun-Mars conjunction closely setting opposite Jupiter-Saturn on MC, with Moon squaring the rising Jupiter and opposing his natal Moon. Natal Venus sets, all part of the mix. Florence's Moon is exactly MC of his SSR. The SQ brings s Jupiter right to IC. The SLR has a mundane Moon-Sun opposition plus natal Jupiter exactly on IC (20' in longitude) and his Sun on Nadir. His Demi-SLR is mixed - a classic man's marriage chart with a partile Mars-Jupiter conjunction square MC (and aspecting natal Mars on MC), but showing more the bondage than the beauty with Saturn about 1° from Descendant and conjunct Neptune.

For the first "Jack Attack," no transits or progressions suggest his presence or participation. His SSR does not suggest it, nor are there SSR progressions or transits suggesting it (except maybe the SQ with transiting Pluto near WP and Saturn square solar Jupiter on Asc). Ditto his SLR and pending Demi-SLR. If this is his birth chart, the Jack allegations are malarkey.

But this is a credible chart for other known events in his life, including his wedding and, especially, his death.