Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

This one is especially for Steve when he gets back from being on the road in a few weeks, but also is likely of interest to the rest of you.

Los Angeles Sidereal astrology Skippy Pyle wrote an article, published in the February 1973 issue of American Astrology, about how she followed reprints of Cyril Fagan articles to win big in Las Vegas. The article is "How I Won Big in Nevada" by Farrel L. Pyle. If you can get hold of the issue somehow, the whole story is charming, but I'm going to summarize the main technical points.

She gives charts but not birth data. What I give below is a reconstruction, working backwards from the charts given. (I had her chart decades ago, and have lost it along the way; but, even if I had it in hand from her personally, I'd feel I couldn't ethically disclose it after she went to such efforts to obscure it. Therefore, I'll rely only on the information she provided in public, using methods anyone could use who can calculate a chart.)

The chart she provided shows planet positions for April 13, 1913, 1:00 PM PST. She did not disclose a birth place. (The published Moon position of 25°09'11" Gemini produces a time of 1:00:43 PM, so it was probably a 1973-era best calculation for a 1:00 PM time. The Moon placement for the round hour is 25°08'47". The relocation chart she gave for Stateline, NV - the one in Douglas Co., not Clark Co. - has a 15°31' Aries MC, matching the 1:00 PM birth time to the minute.)

Here is her natal chart relocated to Stateline, NV.

In 1972, she kept postponing her vacation from work because she wanted to time it to match her best lunar returns. She found she couldn't delay it past August, so she concentrated on the August 6, 1972 SLR. Her natal Moon-Jupiter opposition was prominent (very close to square Ascendant). Natal Sun was close to Ascendant. Transiting Uranus was near Descendant, square her Moon-Jupiter (it wasn't all that close to square them, but I'm repeating her thinking for this report). She certainly thought it would make a great vacation chart. (She states in the article that she was residing in Los Angeles.)

A month before the vacation, she got her August issue of American Astrology in the mail with a reprinted Cyril Fagan article that said, "Finding Jupiter exactly on the cusp of the 1st house of his lunar return, a businessman decided to test the value of these returns by betting on three horses... it passed the test with flying colors... all three horses won, bringing a gain of $1,128... an astrologer well known to the readers of this magazine... on more than one occasion won a substantial sum of money on horseracing when his natal Jupiter came to the cusp of the 10th house of his current PSSR."

This, of course, started to give her ideas about where to take her vacation.

She relocated her SLR to Stateline, NV, saw that it was essentially the same except that Uranus was slightly more angular (in fact it was 1°27' away in mundo). She doesn't seem to have noticed that natal Jupiter was also a bit closer to square Ascendant.)

In August she also had a progressed Venus-Uranus square. Stateline, like Los Angeles, had natal and progressed Venus on her natal/local MC, and the Venus-Uranus square was indeed exact that month (only 1' wide the day the SLR set up). She read this accurately as "pleasurable surprises." Furthermore, her progressed Moon at 3°38' Virgo was coming up to a square by transiting Jupiter (61' on August 6).

She looked at her Solar Quotidian - the quotidian secondary progression of her SSR - and discovered "Jupiter was conjoined the Ascendant, as nice as could be, while in square to Pluto, the planet of miraculous eventualities and 'beating the odds,' and in opposition to to Venus at the Descendant. Uranus was at the Midheaven..."

FWIW, these orbs are a little wide for me. SQ Ascendant was 2° Sagittarius (just using the August 6 SLR date as a starting point), and transiting Jupiter was 4°39' Sagittarius, Pluto 5°50' Virgo, Venus 6°15' Gemini - the planet aspects are all tight and excellent, I just am not used to seeing quotidians (in personal charts) work at nearly 3° orbs. But, I continue with her story...

But what to play? How to gamble? To squeeze a lovely story into fewer words, a few days before leaving she found an old Keno card on which her dad had won $3,000. She decided she'd play Keno, and play exactly the same numbers on which he had won. (She also got another copy of American Astrology in the mail with more remarks from Fagan that seemed to be exactly describing her chart patterns.)

She calculate her SLR would set up in Stateline at August 6, 10:43:46 PM. (Close enough for the time - she was 44 second late <g>). She decided this was the day, and looked for a time when her natal Jupiter would be exactly on MC, matching Fagan's examples. She found her Jupiter would be half a degree short of crossing MC at Stateline that night at 11:12 PM. (I confirm.) She wanted a two-minute (half degree) lead-up to the exact 11:14 PM hit of her Jupiter to local MC. Everything else also looked good for the time.

She flew from LA to Lake Tahoe August 4 on a plane that took off with Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus on angles. And then...

On August 6, she went to the casino at 8:30 PM. She started playing Keno, betting her dad's nine numbers. Six of her numbers came up at about 10:00 PM, and she won $60. She kept playing.

Then, at "approximately 11:12 PM" (wouldn't we have loved to have the exact time? <vbg>)one of the other, all nine of her numbers came up on the board.

She won $6,000, which was more than 5,000 times her risk.

It was her first big win of any kind. It wasn't her last...