Solunars by Aldebaran Sidereal Academy

[These excerpts are from the fourth (and final) of four early articles I have by Tropical astrologer Donald Bradley on the U.S. horoscope.

He began this installment addressing those who had tried to rebut his previous arguments on the "Libra-rising chart." They are probably worthwhile to show where his general thinking was evolving while still a Tropical adtrologer - the thinking that led him to a different view of things.]

WORDS OF CAUTION. Rebuttals to our argument in favor of the Libra-rising United States horoscope have been very interesting, and we appreciate the good sportsmanship shown by our friends and colleagues who lend the support of their convictions to other proposed charts. Our blanket-answer to most of the material used in support of these other charts is that there has been too great a tendency to take liberties with the simplest astrological symbolism.

Mars is primarily the significator of war, and Saturn of the deaths of Presidents. Such elementary precepts must be adhered to as a basis for testing a speculative mundane chart, or there is just no rational way to test any kind of astrological chart. It is not sufficient to merely demonstrate the prominence of several “bad” aspects for a comparably adverse event. The probability of finding a few squares and oppositions in operation at any given time is too great to consider it “proof positive” that such-and-such a chart must be radical. Where the subject of war is concerned, better find one lone configuration of Mars than a half-dozen squares, oppositions, or parallels involving planets other than the Planet of War.

Moreover, citing parallels of declination in a mooted chart is risky business. Parallels come by the handful, as anyone experienced in chart-work knows. They may be significant, true, but at any random moment of time, event or no event, there may easily be between five and a dozen parallels within the customary one-degree orb of effectiveness. Research work must be rooted in the two principles that (a) like planets attract like events, and (by), the more momentous the event, the more prominent the corresponding configuration. Students who abide by these principles will not wander awry in their studies, to become lost in a maze of trivia.

Another note of caution to the newer student: Mind those angular cusps! We feel that there is not enough appreciation of the importance of the horizon and meridian nowadays, since the trend of recent decades in modern astrology has been toward more and more detailed systematizing of the meanings of the individual houses. Nobody realizes this more painfully than the mundane astrologer, who knows that Mars angular in a mundane chart indicates a heavy mortality toll from accidents across the nation much more surely than when that planet occupies the Third House, normally said to suggest this situation. The Third is a cadent house, and to have a malefic planet cadent is far more desirable than to have it near an angle. As a further illustration, Saturn in the Sixth is believed to increase the deathrate from diseases, malnutrition, and physical exposure. Again, this is a cadent position, and there is reason to doubt the validity of the idea, since Saturn in any of the four angular houses, notably the Ascendant or Fourth, would more logically bring about those conditions, if the consistency of astrological symbolism is to be upheld in making our interpretations and predictions. Saturn in the Tenth, moreover, has accurately foretold the deaths of Presidents and prominent public leaders, but none of the six Presidents who have passed away in office did so when the Midheaven ruler was in the Eighth, nor has there been anything particularly significant concerning “afflictions” to the Tenth-house rulers in the six cases. We who are regularly engaged in research are learning to be ever wary of the numerous pitfalls of ill logic into which a student can so easily fall.


[He next reviewed a book in a way that must have been uncomfortable, since he was the pseudonymous author!]

Applause. Lewis Howard of Hollywood deserves an Oscar for his achievement in research on the United States’ horoscope, the results of which he has prepared in interesting detail in a manuscript soon to be published by Llewellyn Publications, Ltd., entitled Astrology and the United States. Yours truly was lucky enough to have been privileged a pre-publication reading of this little book, and is enthusiastic in his endorsement.

Mr. Howard obviously has given the subject a great deal of deep and careful thought. Students of astrology everywhere owe it to themselves to peruse the product of this man’s study, which represents a worthwhile contribution to our field’s Astrologia Americana, A laudatory feature of his book is the original experimental approach he makes to determine which of the several possible charts is most likely the true radix of the United States of America. With commonsense, so keen it is even dramatic, Lewis Howard demonstrates the fact that the Libra-rising chart is a remarkable symbolical map of the continental U.S.! By employing the age-old principles of “Geographical Astrology,” Howard shows that every basic social, economic, and even tellural, region, from coast to coast, and from border to border, is clearly symbolized by the positions and dispositions of the Libra-rising wheel.

Equally interesting is his analysis of seven major events in American history with full-page illustrations. The climaxes in the development of our nation he treats, in the light of transits and progressions, include the outbreak and ending of the Civil War, the declaration and armistice of World War I, the great stock-market crash of 1929, Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese Surrender which ended World War II. The author should be praised for his accomplishment, which is particularly attractive to us, not alone because it endorses the Libra chart, but because the “atmosphere” of his research has been kept clear of the smog of trivialities in that he adhered to those “first principles of research” we mentioned a few paragraphs back.

Have you ever considered how Saturnian is the folklore and humor indigenous to America? Even the most appealing, however absurd, legend of all the many appealing, absurd legends which have become institutions in our land, that of Paul Bunyan, was a lumberjack’s invention. (Some claim it had its origin among miners, but in either case, America's most famous myth arose from a Saturnian industry.) Originally, the beloved giant demigod of the forest must psychologically have been sired by the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer, which sign is said to rule forests and natural waterways. and the terrain in general. But since Saturn is the most prominent planet in the U.S. chart, it describes the inevitable form in which our traditions “jell.” (Every planet but Venus, Neptune and Pluto, is within orb of one of the five major aspects to rising Saturn. Hence, Saturn is doubly the national “key planet,” and implies that, when making any interpretations of configurations involving the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter or Uranus, their delineative “common denominator” is Saturn.) The Ascendant of a mundane chart describes the “personality of the populace," and what is folklore but a psychical projection of the people who foster it?

In addition to the delightful though imaginary Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, we have a legion of immortalized heroes like Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickock and Billy the Kid, “all chock full of brag and fight.” (Apologies to the Kefauver committee for having to list bandits, gamblers and killers, along with Jefferson and Lincoln in the entourage of America’s most revered heroes.) On the deadly serious side we have Johnny Appleseed and Casey Jones as national heroes whose tales are told and retold by citizen-liars around the cracker barrel. Mark Twain noticed that the typical American story was a string of incongruities and absurdities spun out to great length with the tellers and listeners seeming to be innocently unaware that they are absurdities judging by the ponderous drawl and deadpan faces at the scene. Bret Harte referred to American story tellers as “stump orators,” since the early practice was for the narrator to perch on a tree stump, whether indoors or out, before the advent of the orange crate. Harte long ago recognized the peculiarly-American use of the “funny story" and “tall tale” as a clincher for arguments, as grist in the political mill come election time, and as a popularity-winning device by evangelists and ministers. (To illustrate a sermon’s point by humor in other countries would be considered profanation of the pulpit. In America, even God must laugh with something more than Scripture-permit ted holy derision, once in a while.)

Those of you who have done considerable reading of the literature of depth-psychology, particularly Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious,” already know that humor is a Saturnian phenomenon of the psyche. Wit is the natural compensation for inhibition. Animals and uninhibited primitive peoples possess no sense of humor. (Anthropologists know that the quality of a tribe's appreciation of wit is in direct ratio to the number of taboos observed by the tribe.) The art of humor has reached its fullest bloom in the most-repressed countries of the world, with America leading all others in this respect. How could it be otherwise, with Saturn rising, in our national horoscope?

That humor is essentially Saturnian is proved by the subject-matter of popular jokes and jests. We laugh most heartily at, and the overwhelming majority of our “funny stories” pertain to, sex, murder, death in general, mothers-in-law, unhappy marriages, physical defects, malicious mischief, moral weaknesses of Saints, activities of Satan, the misfortune and embarrassments of others, and imbecility! (Astrologers who have confused Jupiterian cheerfulness with actual humor had better take inventory of their own repertoire of jokes.) The subject-matter of our stories, of all shades, is so obviously Saturnian, it is not really a contradiction that “every clown wants to play Hamlet." Humor thrives on morbidity, especially in America,
where a belch can bring down the whole house, and the only citizens who are emotionally disturbed at the sight of lingerie displays in shop windows are those who decry the devil.
It is most interesting, from our astrological point of view, that psychologists technically class the most typical American humor as “regressive wit.” A story is most effective upon listeners if the teller makes use of the oratorical mechanism of regression to arrive at the final punch-line. Angular Mercury in the U. S. radix is retrograde in the imaginative sign Cancer, square to rising Saturn. Such a configuration is perfectly descriptive of this fact, since Mercury is the planet of expression and narration, and, when retrograde, denotes roundabout expression.

[He then had a very digressive-seeming set of remarks on a Carl Jung essay with very little astrological connection. However, he ended with something very interesting to show where his thinking was going. Having just talked about the meaning of Saturn rising in Tropical Libra, he wrote...]

Before passing on to other topics: It is not without significance that the constellation Virgo. holding Saturn, is on the Ascendant of the U.S. radix. Virgo, the winged virgin (and the only zodiacal figure with wings), may well symbolize the feather-motif so dominant in American psychology, e.g.. the feathered head-gear of the Indian (a chart's First House denoting "the head"). It would seem that "national destiny" pre-arranged for our country‘s birthchart to have the starfield of Virgo rising. Virgo, as you know, is frequently depicted on our silver money, and our Indian-head coins have immortalized the feather-motif for all time. (By the way, dig in your jeans for an Indian-head nickel. Note the resemblance of his profile to that of “Uncle Sam," minus the traditional goatee. Even Uncle Sam is gradually becoming Indianized along with his nephews and nieces!). Nations stamp the heads of their sovereigns on their coins. America has need symbols of its destiny and ideals.

[And, finally a REAL indication of where his thinking was headed...]

We have not yet had time to launch upon an exhaustive study at the sidereal-zodiac Solunar Return technique as applied to the national chart, although preliminary excursions into this field have been most fascinating. Already, it is plain that Sun-Saturn aspects in the nation's “solar revolutions" have been dominant in those years when our Presidents died in office. Most arresting to date is the sidereal Solar Return for 1941, preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor. In that chart we find an angular square of the Moon and Mars, within 0°44' partile, among other striking features. An amazing positional coincidence of probably great importance is the odd fact that the 1897 Return, which preceded the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, showed the Moon at 10°36' Virgo SZ, while the 1916 Solar Return. preceding our entry into World War I. showed the Moon at 10°35' Virgo SZ! The pre-Pearl Harbor chart had the Moon in 9°59' Sagittarius SZ, with Mars at 9°15' Pisces SZ. Evidently the tenth degree of the mutable constellations is a sensitive war-area in the heavens. [NB: If you want to look into this, he was likely using a zodiac 0°54' from the correct one. Subtract that amount from these positions to find the accurate SZ locations.]

We wish to call students’ attention to the extremely successful use we have made of President Truman’s birthchart rectified by 12 minutes earlier than the given time of 4:00 p.m. L.M.'l‘. A chart set for 3:48 p.m. local time at Lamar, Missouri. on May 8th, 1884, seems to pass all the tests of validity we have applied. using the many crises H.S.T. has experienced during his tenure. Of course, this is not a claim that our relatively slight rectification is unassailable gospel, and is merely mentioned for what it may be worth to those who may have felt annoyance at using a chart which obviously needs some amendation in the light of current events. Other students may refine even our approximate correction, so that We will ultimately have a chart for the present President which will withstand the severest of unbiased testings.

In closing, this installment of “Happenings,” one last comment which poses a question. Last year we discussed briefly the workability of the theory behind “Locality Astrology,” assuming the Libra-rising chart was radical. Continuing with this justified assumption, it strikes us that the geographical meridians on which our larger cities are located have correspondingly important fixed-stars on their angles, For example, such metropolitan areas as Washington, DC, New York City and Philadelphia, have a host of prominent stars on their locality-Midheavens, including Castor, Pollux, Procyon, etc. Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans boast Sirius and Canopus, while the Denver-Cheyenne area has such stars as Rigel, Bellatrix and El Nath (the “Bull’s Horn” – ever been in Laramie?) on their upper meridians. Most interesting coincidence of all is the culmination of Aldebaran over Los Augeles. It is a well known fact that Southern California has more astrologers per square mile than any other place in the western world. Aldebaran is the celestial patron of astrology, in the ancient traditions. (See Cyril Fagan’s “Zodiacs: Old and New,” for the interesting details concerning Aldebaran, the Star of Star-readers.)

This completes this series.