Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

[These excerpts are from the third of four early articles I have by Tropical astrologer Donald Bradley on the U.S. horoscope. After a few preliminary remarks about America's economic philosophy, he heads into a lengthy discussion of the three extremely close aspects in the U.S. horoscope: Venus conjunct Jupiter, Sun square Saturn, and Mars square Neptune.]

Trio of Fates

Any proposed national horoscope based on the Declaration of Independence, or, simply the date of July 4th, 1776, shows three mutual planetary aspects approaching their exact phase. Naturally, we would expect these three varied types of “vibrations” to be predominent in the life-history of the United States. We have just pointed out that the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the 9th House of the Libra-rising map is the key to our national capitalism, which reached its fullest bloom in the imperialism of the late 19th century. Even today, it is obvious that our fortunate Venus-Jupiter complex is the best diplomatic instrument we boast (“dollar-diplomacy").

The significance of the square of elevated Sun and rising Saturn is in bas-relief on the-pages of national history. Our isolationistic policy, our hardships as rugged pioneers in taming a wilderness. and the ultimate burden we as a nation were destined to carry as a world power, are clear-cut effects of this Sun-Saturn vibration.

Sun-square-Saturn eternally signifies self-incurred indebtedness, so it is not perplexing that our staggeringly great public debt is without precedent in any other clime or time, Furthermore, Sun-Saturn afflictions are omens of self-destruction: the Civil War, which ravaged and bloodied our good earth, was a fulfillment of the radix indication. This is not all. either, for it is impossible to forget the price we have paid for rapid progress. For every gleaming alabaster city built, a lush forest was destroyed, so that there is now only one tree for every eight which stood before our covered wagons rolled westward. In addition to the waste and near-depletion of our natural resources, we have extinguished whole species of fauna by gun and trap.

Economically, the Venus-Jupiter influence is in constant warfare with the equally-strong Sun-Saturn influence. Our economy seldom finds equilibrium for any length of time, swinging to fantastic heights and depths so rapidly that breadlines and real estate booms are alternative phenomena, and last year's banker may well be today's panhandler. The significance of this aspect would generally apply to any of the U.S. horoscopes in question, but the differing house-positions would qualify the expressions of the influence. The Gemini-rising chart shows the Sun in the 2nd and Saturn in the 5th, a circumstance which would be ridiculous if basic astrological precepts are valid. If this were the case. America could not have become the fastest-growing country in the World, nor could it have become the most pleasure-loving, athletic-minded. theatre-patronizing body of people in the world.

The Sagittarius-rising chart has the Sun in the 8th and Saturn in the 11th. The implications of this pattern are hardly feasible; the nation’s wealthiest corporation is an insurance firm, almost our whole sociological advancement has been due to endowments and philanthropical organizations, and one trait which even our Cold War Opponents cannot deny is the fact of American generosity.

The third major aspect in our trio of Fates is the square of Mars and Neptune. This is surely descriptive of our “social evils,” to wit, the perennial crime problem, the underworld and the upperworld of the underworld which is called politics, the racial-intolerance situation, the constant suspicion by one man of another, the conflict of the moral code, etc. Foreign scholars have some interesting, shocking things to say about Americans. Naturally, intellectual honesty bids us admit that scholarly observation by outsiders will reveal the true nature of American idiosyncrasy far better than we insiders can discern for ourselves.

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Heed a statement by that eminent late world-thinker, H. G. Wells: "By European standards, by the standards of any state that has existed hitherto, the level of the common education of America is high; but by the standard of what it might be, America is an uneducated country."

Yes, here we are with the greatest technological civilization of all time, with more freedom for the individual than exists anywhere in the world, with the highest standards of living on the globe. Yet, the average man or woman, despite that car and radio and refrigerator and telephone, cannot name the Great Lakes or solve simple proportion problems, uses otherwise empty bookshelves for a hideous assortment of bric-a-brac and what-nots, and cannot seem to refrain from an enormous amount of bickering at home. Ask any bank clerk how much of eight year’s inculcation of arithmetic is retained by the average citizen. The U.S. 3rd House is empty and its ruler is cadent, While the 9th House, strongly fortified by strength of numbers alone, shows great volume and great waste of that precious commodity, education.

No other nation spends so much on public education as does America, yet even the new “liberal” educational policy continues the old practice of unrealism so that the names and dates and places we are taught to memorize still do not seem to be more than doses of the dullest fiction. George Washington is represented as the father of his country, yet our children first learn the facts of fatherhood in the gutter and behind the barn. Wars and crusades throughout human history have been lost through the carnal indulgence of troops and leaders, but our school-books offer less factual reasons. We appear to think that it is more important for our children to draw pictures of barnyard fowl than to tell them why roosters do not lay eggs. A glance at the occupants and dispositions of the 9th House of our national radix suffices to show how unrealistic American education really is. It is little wonder that Philip Wylie, through the medium of his popular novel, “Finnley Wren," proposes a fitting epitaph of the future, viz., “Here lies America, stillborn in the little red schoolhouse.” His other suggestion was, “Here lies a great nation, slain by Cinderella, Santa Claus and the Stork.”

America’s Crime Problem

In view of the fact that one of the three major planetary vibrancies of the U.S. horoscope is essentially “criminogenic." or crime-conducive, in effect, little wonder is it that the annual cost of crime in the nation is around eight billions of dollars. It is nearly impossible to comprehend such a tremendous sum, except graphically. Martin Mooney attempts an illustration, thusly: “Add up the yearly income of General Motors, United States Steel, the Hearst papers, Radio Corporation of America, the National City Bank and twenty-five other large and powerful business enterprises of the country – and there you have a little-over half of what crime and racketeering earmark for their own coffers each year.”

Notwithstanding all the superficial “causes of crime and delinquency,” which we blithefully list as social problems to be solved by legislation and slum-clearance and imprisonment, and so forth, we must get down to the roots of the question for a cause of the causes. This first cause is surely the American philosophy itself. Many sociologists and criminologists have called this typically American attitude a “something-for-nothing philosophy” which evolved in our national life as the result of conquest and exploitation of the richest expanse of land in the world. The well-known writer Walter Lippman surmised, “The high level of lawlessness is maintained by the fact that Americans desire to do so many things which they also desire to prohibit.” In last year's Bulletina, we discussed the odd compulsion toward prohibition and social-control which Americans have shown since their inception as a nation.

In 1931 the Wickersham Commission reported on the causes of crime in America. One of its members, however, not content with the superficial, classroom-ish nature of the final report, issued a minority report which caused as much consternation among law-officers and social workers as did the formal Wickersham paper. Its author, the Hon. Henry W. Anderson of Virginia, among other things, had this to say: “Offsetting the many admirable qualities and achievements of American civilization are certain general facts of which the student of present social conditions must take cognizance. The American people acquired in its virgin state what is in many respects the most favored and fruitful area of the world’s surface. They have existed as an independent people for only the short period of 150 years. Within this time they have destroyed the original occupants of the soil or driven them from their land with little regard for their rights. They have converted substantially all of this great area, with its immense natural resources, from public into private ownership. They have exploited these resources for private gain to an extent which, in some instances at least, already threatens exhaustion. They have created the widest spread between the extremes of wealth and poverty existing in the western world.... They have created the largest body of laws and the most complex system of government now in existence as restraints and controls upon individual and social conduct, but every stage in their development has been characterized by a large and ever increasing degree of lawlessness and crime. They have engaged in at least one war in every generation. No candid investigation can ignore these facts or the conclusions which they naturally suggest."

This has been a long quotation, but its implications are part and parcel of our discussion. Keeping in mind the structure of the Libra-rising chart. The student can well see that only this horoscope can qualify as radical, in view of the facts so lucidly offered by such competent scholars. Mr. Anderson speaks of the fact that in America we have the widest breach between the extremes of wealth and poverty existing in the Occident. Two of those three chief planetary aspects in the national horoscope speak so eloquently of this circumstance: Venus-conjunct-Jupiter, and Sun-square-Saturn. He mentions that we are the most statute-ridden and restraint-bent country in the world: Saturn on the Ascendant. (Refer to last year's Bulletina commentary for amplified remarks on this point.) Then he says that every stage in our national development has been characterized by a large and ever increasing degree of lawlessness and crime: According to astrology. Mars-Neptune afflictions are the most criminogenic of planetary influences.

Lawlessness. we regret to admit, is not a mode of behavior engaged in exclusively by that portion of the population which we brand as “the underworld." Eye-witness accounts of lynchings, for instance, shock us when we learn that hesitation by the actual perpetrators of the atrocity is often counteracted by the women onlookers – women whose moral standing in the community is unquestioned by virtue of church-attendance, patriotism, etc. Also indicative is the publicity cast onto isolated instances of honesty vide the return of unlooted wallets. But how can we expect our children to grow up untainted by un-moral yearnings when they regularly witness lying between their parents, and. if not that, periodic cursings of the neighbors, daddy's boss, mommy's bridge opponents, and the traffic cop? An unbiased observer of life in the United States can see as much of the regrettable as of the wholesome on every hand. We send our children to church and Sunday school in the hope that they will turn out differently than we, but seldom can we find even a fundamentalist church which does not suffer disruption now and then by petty rivalries and personality-clashes among its most representative members.

Delineation Sidelights

The blessings imbued upon the United States by its birthchart 9th House, however, are more beneficial than adverse. in several respects. Uranus there is a major factor in the preservation of that wonderful heritage of religious freedom which America enjoys. It is also the astrological signature of religious experimentation and pioneering. A glance at Saturday’s newspaper will prove to what degree America is spiritually restless and eager for unique religious activity. Out of These States have arisen world-wide religious movements. Typical of which are Christian Science, the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, and Seventh-Day Adventism. Yet, it is analytically noteworthy that all such religious inventions and innovations retain for their common bases the same Judeo-Christian system of metaphysics and morals.

Now, this is an interesting clue to "the American personality” as it is reflected in the United States’ birthchart. The internationally eminent French psychologist, Rene Guyon, once stated “Indeed. it may be said that. in North America at the present day, this (Judeo-Christian) metaphysical system is accepted with as little discussion as in Europe during the Middle Ages.” Elsewhere, Msr. Guyon refers to the moral policy of the United States as "more inelastic than that of the Anglo-Saxons of the Old World" in spite of the fact that the populace of America is probably the least homogeneous of all modern nations. drawing. as it did. upon dozens of decidedly different nationalities. languages and cultures, for its very substance. From an astrological point of view, this historically-miraculous fusing of “the melting pot” would have been impossible without a predominance of the planet Saturn. The lands and climates and ways-of-life which the bloodstrains of our populace represent are so variegated, it is certainly a miracle that the United States actually is as united as its name implies. Students of astrology who deny the fact that Saturn ascends in our national horoscope should deliberate on such facts as these.

The feminist movement was naturally a trend and compulsion shared by the entire Western world. In America, however, the drive for the “emancipation of women" took on some remarkable attributes. When woman’s suffrage was enacted into constitutional law, the urban American woman manifested a side to her character which the liberated women of other countries kept in repression. That was her aggressiveness and masculine vigor, so descriptively predicted in the U.S. radix by the trine of Moon and Mars. That same fortunate aspect may be thanked for its assistance in the shoulder-to-shoulder westward march of the American man and woman. The initiative of the American woman is among this country's most precious assets. Without her axe and bucket and broom, the history of the frontier might read altogether differently.

The greatest danger-spot in the U.S. horoscope is the Mars-Neptune configuration. In addition to what we have already said, this influence doubtless is a key to our liquor and narcotics situation. A less obtrusive, but nonetheless important, way in which this vibration has expressed itself in American life, is in fratricidal fear. American men are eternally and viciously jealous of each other. While we sing of brotherhood from sea to shining sea, we cannot suppress feelings of suspicion regarding sincerity of most gestures of friendliness between man and man, and between woman and woman. A man who dares to practice true brotherly love toward his associates is automatically thought to be a milksop, while a woman who sincerely compliments another is seldom credited with purity of motive by the lady complimented. We've all witnessed and experienced this peculiar attitude of Americans toward each other, and have become so inured to the general prudery, we hardly pause to think of it as a national trait.

America's 5th-House Moon, together with the Mars-Neptune square, easily explains the national mania for speculation, and it is definite that neither the Gemini-rising nor Sagittarius-rising charts define this behaviorism. Last December’s TRUE magazine declared that about $30 billion are bet annually in the United States, although not "more than $5 billion are made in the form of “casual wagers” between friends, in employee pools, and similar above-board ways. $25 billion are handled by “outlawed” (!) bookmakers, most of whom are supervised by powerful underworld bosses. What is most surprising is that at least $15 billion are gambled on sports events every year, with more than half that sum bet on baseball alone. (Did I hear somebody mention horses?) And just think, Senator Thomas of Oklahoma shocked his constituents “back home," and the press vilified him, for suggesting that a national lottery would defray the cost of World War II! The good senator was merely facing facts, but his advocacy of the idea was protested by a public which has always shown a wide breach between its attitude and its activity.

The same series of planetary aspects which conduce toward this odd state of affairs also serve to explain other interesting peculiarities of life in the United States. Extraordinary among these is the amusing brand of emotionalism which demonstrates its virility every day, over the air, in the movies, at sports stadia, in newsstand literature. and in the newspapers. How Mrs. America loves to suffer during housework, judging by the regular daytime radio fare! It is remarkable that the American woman can identify herself one moment with Elsie Dinsmore, and the next with Joan Crawford, while the American man shifts erratically in his self-projected imagery between Johnny Lujack, Mickey Cohen and Benjamine Fairless. Yes, vivid imagination and vicarious-outlet are earmarks of American everyday life. The swooning feminine fans of Sinatra are not a new phenomenon; the onion chips secreted in handkerchiefs of mourners at Rudolph Valentino’s funeral were as effective as the menthol deposits on the hankies of present-day courtroom defendants.

Courtroom fanfare itself is aptly described by the U.S. 9th House. That leading jurists are right in saying that our jury-system is faulty and often unfair, is doubtless true, for Mars in the 9th is square Neptune in the 12th, causing decisions to be based more upon sentiment than blind justice. The eminent lawyer, Morris L. Ernst, in a nation-wide broadcast recently, said that in cases involving morals, the jury will always convict, while the higher court will always acquit. How glaringly true! Even though we have expert scientific testimony in most of our leading trials, this testimony seldom appears to influence the average jury. Evidently, Uranus in the 9th is over-powered by the more strongly aspected national Mars.

The whole issue of American penology is another interesting factor for study. Penology is a 12th-House subject, according to astrology, so afflicted Neptune there in the U. S. radix sheds light on the problem of police behavior and judicial injustices. The individuals comprising a force of law officers are hardly to blame, for they, too, are victims of “the system." Criminologists tell us that American policemen are generally considerate of arrestees in direct proportion to the extent of their criminality. In other words, “first offenders” are shown little respect upon apprehension, and even physical abuse, while “misdemeants” are given more personal consideration. The “felon,” or advanced criminal, is handled, surprisingly, with a remarkable amount of respect and the least mistreatment. A Mars-Neptune state of affairs, as ever was! Our police and prison system is a prime breeder of further crime, according to scientists, and no marvel, since it is Neptunian to the core. Much more could he said under this topic, but space is running short, and other things must be touched upon.

[In the second half, he talked about a new subject more eloquently than I've seen anyone else do it.]

NATIONAL LOCALITY CHARTS

Locality astrology is steadily gaining new adherents among students. The use of the principle of equating the cusps of a birth-chart to other localities than the birthplace is now sufficiently established in astrological practice to warrant its application as a test of the validity of a national horoscope. We have done considerable research along this line and are pleased to here with give examples of our findings – findings which completely vindicate the Libra-rising chart of the United States.

The latest and best determination of the original R.A.M.C. of the national radix is 106°57', giving a Midheaven of 15° 37' Cancer, and an Ascendant of 13°32' Libra for the city of Philadelphia. The cusps for other localities on the earth’s surface are a matter of simple addition or subtraction of the difference of geographic longitude between a place and the meridian of Philadelphia. Hence, the U.S. horoscope equated to Minneapolis gives an M.C. of 28°56' Gemini, with 29°07' Virgo rising. New Orleans has the national M.C. in 1°51' Cancer and Ascendant in 1°46' Libra, etc. We will now show beyond the shadow of a doubt that the locality-cusps of the national radix do exercise some influence on affairs in a locality which have national import. (Do not expect purely local events and affairs to have appropriate tie-ins with the national cusps, as only localized eventualities with a national impact are indicated by application of this method.)

In Old Chicago

Whether the cow kicked over a lantern, or whether it started from spontaneous combustion in hay, is an argument that will never be settled. It is certain, however, that the fire started in Mrs. O’Leary’ barn, at 137 de Koven Street, in Chicago, Illinois, “a little past 9 p.m." of October 8th, 1871. In the three-day conflagration that ensued, $196,000,000 worth of property was consumed in the blaze which destroyed 18,000 buildings and several hundred lives.

Mankind learns the hard way. It took the Chicago fire to chastise city dwellers into organizing and equipping pi fire departments for the safety of populace and property. That this regrettable event was no mere mishap, so far as the control of indefinable "fate” is concerned, is shown clearly by the United States horoscope, in several interesting ways. It has often been remarked how fascinating is the historical fact that the Chicago fire was the lesser of two great fires on the same geographic meridian which broke out and raged at the same time. More than a thousand people died, thousands were crippled. and three thousand were beggared by the great forest fire which burned over six counties in and around the ill-fated town of Pestigo, Wisconsin.

October of 1871 was therefore “America’s most fiery month," without parallel even in the San Francisco disaster of 1906. The oncoming progressed aspect in the United States horoscope which matured on October 27th, 1871, was a conjunction of the Moon and progressed Mars! This aspect would be several months out in either the Gemini or Sagittarius hypothetical charts. The predominating progression of the year was progressed Sun conjunct radix Saturn, which matured in August of 1871.

The U.S. chart equated to the city of Chicago shows a Midheaven of 4°04' Cancer, and an Ascendant of 3°29' Libra. It is truly a remarkable coincidence that transiting Saturn on October 9th, 1871 was at 4°05’ Capricorn, and hence at the Chicago and Pestigo Nadirs. Such a coincidence is impossible with any chart other than that with Libra on the national Ascendant.

For evidence that this cuspal transit was not a sheer coincidence, we have only to consult an ephemeris for May 4th. 1886, when the infamous “Haymarket Anarchist Riot” occurred in tribulated Chicago. Transiting Saturn on that day was at 4°45' Cancer! Uranus, interestingly, was on the Chicago Ascendant, at 4°10' Libra, in perilously close square with the culminating malefic Saturn.

Or, take America’s worst theatre disaster, which killed 602 persons in the burning Iroquois Theatre in Chicago on December 30th, 1903. Transiting Neptune was at 4°27’ Cancer when this terrible holocaust took place. Most of the victims were smothered by smoke or trampled to death in the panic which swept the audience with typically Neptunian terrorism. The windy city's next most tragic fire, confined to a building, was that which gutted the La Salle Hotel on June 5th, 1946, killing 61 persons. Neptune was at 5°52’ Libra on that date.

In passing, mention might be made of another interesting tie-in of this same type of astrological application. The “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” of 1929 was accomplished with Uranus in 5°06' of Aries. Even more revealing: The notorious gangster, John Dillinger, met his fate on a Chicago street the night of July 22nd, 1934, in one of the most violent gun battles with federal officers that this nation has witnessed. Mars was at 4°52' Cancer when Dillinger, betrayed by “the lady in red," was cut down by a bullet-barrage that newsworthy night.

Westward the Course of Empire

The Mexican territory known as California was formally declared a possession of the United States around 10 a.m., July 7th, 1846, in Monterey, when Commander John D. Sloat raised the American flag over the customs house during a brief military ceremony. The transiting Sun was on the U.S. radix Midheaven, with Uranus on the radix Descendant. However, most important of all is the remarkable circumstance attending the locality-cusps of the national chart equated to the longitude and latitude of Monterey itself. Monterey has 3°12' Gemini and 6°19' Virgo on the Midheaven and Ascendant, respectively. At local noon on July 7th, 1846, Venus at 6°15' and Jupiter at 5°51' Gemini were in conjunction at the Monterey M.C.

On January 9th, 1847, at La Mesa, the last battle of rebellion was won by U.S. forces, and the articles of capitulation were signed 4 days later, the U.S. flag having been raised over Los Angeles on the 10th. The La Mesa battle was fought with transiting Jupiter in 8° Gemini and Mars in 8° Sagittarius, which is truly remarkable, for the Los Angeles Midheaven is 5°44' Gemini with the Ascendant at 8°01' Virgo. Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill on January 24th. 1848, with Jupiter at 13°13' Cancer (on U.S. radix Sun); the Mexican War ended 9 days later. California’s movement toward statehood materialized on September 1st, 1849, when 48 delegates convened in Colton Hall at Monterey to draft a State Constitution. On that memorable date, transiting Jupiter was in 4°30' Virgo! The second, and present, State Constitution was ratified by voters on May 7th, 1879, when Jupiter was in the 8th degree of Pisces.

In ‘passing, it is interesting to recall that the Long Beach earthquake of March 10th, 1933, occurred with the Moon at 6°52’, Mars at 7°15', Cauda at 7°15', Neptune at 8°31 of Virgo, with Venus at 9°29' Pisces. This may be just coincidence, but the Long Beach national Ascendant is 8°01' Virgo, The preceding eclipse had taken place in the 6th degree of Pisces.

The possibility of coincidence is lessened by the fact that the eclipse preceding the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire took place in the 4th degree of Pisces, with Saturn in the 5th degree of Pisces. The Bay City’s national M.C. is 1°45' Gemini, Ascendant, 5°20' Virgo.

Miscellaneous “Coincidences”

The Libra-rising chart is the only national horoscope which can stand the test of locality-equation. The worst coalmine disaster that the western United States has ever suffered took place in Dawson, New Mexico, on October 22nd, 1913, with a loss of 263 lives. The Dawson national Midheaven is the 18th degree of Gemini – which was the exact longitude of transiting Saturn on the day of the tragedy! The Ludlow Colorado mine-labor disturbances commenced that month, too, only 45 miles north-east of Dawson. Some 1200 miners and their families were evicted from company-owned houses, and built a tent and dug-out colony of their own where they spent a bitter winter. Saturn was on the area’s national meridian all during these months which reached a horrible climax in the “Ludlow Massacre” of April 20th, 1914. State troops and mine guards attacked – and probably set fire to the miserable little dug-out community, unknowingly leaving behind the bodies of two women and eleven children in the charred wreckage.

“The Sack of Lawrence,” Kansas by a band of pro-slavery brigands on May 21st, 1856, took place under a similar astrological situation, for Saturn was on the locality Midheaven at the time of the attack which leveled the town to a shambles.

Cleveland, Ohio, has a national M.C. of 9° 32' Cancer, and Ascendant of 8°10' Libra. The terrible Lakeview School fire of March 8th, 1908, the Crile Clinic tragedy of May 15th, 1929, and the liquid-gas explosion of October 21st, 1944, in that city, were all attended by appropriate locality-cusp contacts of malefic planets, as consultation of an ephemeris will prove. The Columbus, Ohio, prison fire of April 21st, 1930, is also worth noting. The Great Fire in Boston on November 9th, 1872, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March 25th, 1911, in New York City, and the school disasters at Camden, S.C., on May 17th, 1923, and New London, Texas, on March 18th, 1937, are also cases which the progressive student should consider in the light of malefic transits to national locality cusps.

The “dustbowl” of the western middlewest, interestingly, is defined by the position of the U.S. radix Mars on the local meridian. The national Jupiter is on the meridian of Churchill Downs in Kentucky, which needs no further comment. The point of the Summer Solstice accurately defines the mean route of the great Mississippi River. Especially noteworthy is the fact that Promontory Point in Utah, where the Golden Spike was driven, fusing America’s first transcontinental. railroad, and Boulder-Hoover Dam, lie geographically under the national Uranus. And so it goes – the correspondences are exhaustless.