Plus, allowing for differences in time zones when Mercury goes retrograde, it goes retrograde for the entire planet. So is it supposed to somehow have a big impact on the US election, simply it's because we care about the outcome? Not, I would think, unless it interacts powerfully in some chart or other for either candidate, political party, or US chart (take your pick.)

Speaking of Geoffrey Cornelius (invoked above) maybe this really is a "moment of astrology" issue. Astrologers do sometimes make correct interpretations of the wrong chart (which he defines as radical, even if incorrect time-wise); and Lord knows, astrologers sometimes make wrong interpretations based upon the correct chart.

I also have to wonder, whether an election is at least partly based upon all kinds of things that mundane astrology doesn't measure. We can look to the moon and 4th house as indicating "the people" or the 10th as rulers and leaders; but doesn't this sort of assume that "the people" can be treated as a mass? How would identity politics be delineated in a mundane chart?

Dunno myself.

waybread wrote: Plus, allowing for differences in time zones when Mercury goes retrograde, it goes retrograde for the entire planet. So is it supposed to somehow have a big impact on the US election, simply it's because we care about the outcome? Not, I would think, unless it interacts powerfully in some chart or other for either candidate, political party, or US chart (take your pick.)

Might be worth pointing out that even if Brennan's gang mostly think Mercury retro suggests information breakdowns, plenty of Astro's ignore these notions and put this imagined Mer Rx phenomenom into their top ten list of Astro myths.

My take on retro, which I suspect has a Psychological lineage, is there are as many pros as cons, so in an electoral context it could mean folks take more care with counting the votes and programming the software, thus less delays and admin hiccups.

Nixx wrote:

Just seen this, getting right into the nub of it. Did you say to Bernie are you going to write a letter to the White House saying holding these elections is pointless and I am saving you billions of dollars, so send me a few grand and if not then 'please stop wasting my time'?

Joking aside Bernadette Brady does think the next election is a done deal for the Democrats too based on the Venus cycle. So she is clearly a hard fatalist.

Her prediction is supported by another successful system of predicting US elections based on simply whether the Moon is above or below the horzion on inaguration day. Above horizon =change of administration and below the horizon=status quo. In 2017 the Moon is below the horizon. In 2021 it is above the horizon.

http://i.imgur.com/N1Iqz.gif

I know it sounds dumb but it has been quite effective.

However, I am sure Republicans are depressed enough just now so I will offer them the crumb of astrological comfort that according to the successful Moon dispositor theory on inauguration day -The Republicans will win the White House next time.

http://tmp.skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4748

Mark

Mark wrote:
Joking aside Bernadette Brady does think the next election is a done deal for the Democrats too based on the Venus cycle.

This is supported by another successful system of predicting US elections based on simply whether the Moon is above or below the horzion on inaguration day. Above horizon =change of administration and below the horizon=status quo. In 2017 the Moon is below the horizon. In 2021 it is above the horizon.

http://i.imgur.com/N1Iqz.gif

However, I am sure Republicans are depressed enough just now so I will offer them the crumb of astrological comfort that according to the successful Moon dispositor theory on inauguration day -The Republicans will win the White house next time.

http://tmp.skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4748

Mark

This is more like it. Mr Stell's stats don't look amazing but could improve. The Lunar above/below looks better, 2 quick responses here are why are we not then at the stage where everyone is using this and why would the Moon being above or below change the party in power? .

Clearly we need to find a plausible rationale for these quirky stats. It may be every time I have eaten a kiwi fruit, 194 x, in the last 30 years the Moon, 'just happened to be' in a water sign, but so what?

It's just under the Sibly Desc in 2013, so no change. Just goes to show Sibly is the only chart worth looking at - (we need a blowing ones own trumpet emoticon here) !!

ps- I wasn't joking about Bernie, it is what I would have said to her. That conference looked very interesting, is it going to get on youtube?

Lee Lehman has just posted some pertinent comments on her blog

http://leephd.blogspot.co.uk/

Geoffrey

Nixx wrote:

The Lunar above/below looks better, 2 quick responses here are why are we not then at the stage where everyone is using this and why would the Moon being above or below change the party in power?.

Well I did show this technique at the very start of the thread. However, I along with others probably took the view that this was just 'too simple '. Maybe thats a false perception. Complicated isn't necessarily more astrologically accurate. After this result this technique has quite an impressive record. I am not aware of an astrologer anywhere on earth that has a prediction hit record this accurate.

As for why? Its not my theory but a few ideas..The Moon is the natural significator of the public and in a day chart above the horizon its out sect. This indicates not being comfortable with the status quo. In hellenistic astrology the Moon 'rejoices' below the horizon in the daytime. The Moon below the horizon is in a more nocturnal, yin part of the chart which indicates less activity and perhaps popular satisfaction with the status quo and less desire for dramatic change. There is also something more obscure about the Moon below the horizon. In horary having both lights above the horizon is an indication of recovery of lost property. Matters 'coming to light' perhaps indicates the opinions of the public being the instigators of change.

Incidentally the chart used here is the inaguration chart for Washington DC on January 20th. So the stats are based on that chart not the Sibly chart. You are of course entitled to test out this method with any chart you like.

Of course there are inevitably philosophical objections to this view. Still, didn't astrologers predict problems with the Pluto-Uranus square years before? What happened to free will there? Moreover, on the large collective level I am not so sure we can really speak of free will. Interesting topic for the philosophy forum. This in itself questions things like mundane prediction with natal charts. Lets just say for hypothetical reasons that Hurricane Sandy had determined the result (I doubt it). Would we expect that kind of massive mundane event to show up in a natal chart? Ptolemy, certainly suggests its not sufficient to simply use nativities in such predictions.

That conference looked very interesting, is it going to get on youtube?

Afraid not. It was a fairly small intimate event. Its was fascinating if Platonic philosophy interests you. A good proportion of the world's experts in one room discussing the Timeus, Stoics, Gnosticsm etc. I love that kind of thing myself. Very inspiring I must say.

Mark

pankajdubey wrote:

zoidsoft wrote:if you can?t see a plausible scenario where either side can win, then either it will be a landslide or you haven?t been practicing astrology long enough.

I just don't get this.
So, in a scenario which is so close that either side could win, there would be a landslide !!

No. The inverse. If you can't interpret a plausible scenario where either side can win...

Mark wrote:At the other extreme of the determinism argument I was chatting to Bernadette Brady at the weekend during a Conference we both attended here in Scotland about her approach to this. She makes a very strong case for her visual approach as a mundane predictive tool. She has now predicted two US elections correct on the trot and she already predicts the outcome of the next election will be a Democrat one term presidency followed by a Republican Presidency.

Of course this kind of long range prediction raises all kinds of free will and determinism issues.

Mark

I've suggested that if Romney ran in 2016 or 2024 that he'd be a much stronger candidate in those years; but having legs does not mean that one must run. His 10th from fortune in ZR spirit will not make him run for the presidency necessarily; it might make him president of a large company or he might just sit and let his legs rest (a material cause is that which is necessary but not sufficient in itself to bring something about).

I believe that astrological determinism rests in the realm of material causes, not efficient causes as the stoics would presume. It is a view held by Robert Schmidt (last I talked to him), that Hellenistic era astrologers have at least been of either type (and more broadly) and that it is not possible to determine whether Valens was a full on stoic just by reading his translations. To be sure, such an author would have to say directly. As proof, most modern people do not know what philosophy guides their ideas and thinking because the ideas planted become part of the culture and unconscious over time.

For example, what comes to mind when I say that an "event" happened?

A physicist would map a point in time with respect to the before and after (Aristotle's efficient causation). Such a thought is what influences astrologers to think of transits as points in time that are "hits".

A platonist may think more in terms of the aorist tense where an event is ongoing as part of a process or as part of a collection or set of things that belong together or should be separated into a different species, genus, etc of some sort of categoria (I also mixed in Aristotle ideas here).

The overlap is due to not being particularly conscious of our application of a particular philosophy and this is natural of authors to be influenced by many ideas of a given era.

Might I suggest that there has been a new innovation in mundane astrology in this Presidential election.

Most astrologers have taken one chart (or a very few charts) chosen to represent the election and work out an answer on that chart.

Chris Brennan has collected all these attempts together in a Grand Canonical Ensemble and worked out a weighted mean of their results, which turned out to be correct.

Lee Lehman also chose this approach. She has effectively taken a statistical mean from a number of different charts, which also turned out to be correct.

Is this the way forward then? Instead of looking for the one-chart-which-rules-them-all, take all the charts and methods which might speak in a meaningful way about the results and bring them together in a formal way to determine a tendency from all of them?

Geoffrey

Geoffrey wrote:Might I suggest that there has been a new innovation in mundane astrology in this Presidential election.

Most astrologers have taken one chart (or a very few charts) chosen to represent the election and work out an answer on that chart.

Chris Brennan has collected all these attempts together in a Grand Canonical Ensemble and worked out a weighted mean of their results, which turned out to be correct.

Lee Lehman also chose this approach. She has effectively taken a statistical mean from a number of different charts, which also turned out to be correct.

Is this the way forward then? Instead of looking for the one-chart-which-rules-them-all, take all the charts and methods which might speak in a meaningful way about the results and bring them together in a formal way to determine a tendency from all of them?

Geoffrey

Instead of polling the voting public, it would be like only polling astrologers... That's kind of like an electoral college of astrology, right?

Good morning,

In my humble opinion it is quite laudable to see at least some contemporary astrological authors and 'authorities' applying statistical methods.

Unless i have missed something, it seems that the Hellenistic mundane klimata relevant to the USofA have played, if at all, a minor role in the published astrological analyses and predictions. Basically, one might observe that the USofA are NOT in middle to Northern European klimata, but rather in Southern European / Northern African ones with corresponding likelihoods of outcomes matching these temperaments, mentalities, gene pools, etc. (See for example Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Book 2.)

These tendencies may well be reinforced by substantially changed immigration patterns to the USofA since about WW1, above-mean reproduction quotas of population segments of more southern origins and, not least, by the movement of the demographic population centre towards the south-west.

Best regards,

lihin

zoidsoft wrote:

pankajdubey wrote:

zoidsoft wrote:if you can?t see a plausible scenario where either side can win, then either it will be a landslide or you haven?t been practicing astrology long enough.

I just don't get this.
So, in a scenario which is so close that either side could win, there would be a landslide !!

No. The inverse. If you can't interpret a plausible scenario where either side can win...

Then a landslide for which side ?