Thank you very much DEB, was a great challenge and congratulations to Aquastella!!!
Regards
Mario

Hi Deb!!!
I would give my opinion about the possible day of death.
The Solar Return in 2001 in Weipa, AU, has ASC = 16 ? 56'Cancer Contrantiscio with Pluto in the MidPoint of Mars / Uranus in 17?18'Capricorn aspect which repeats the radix.
The MH of the Solar Return is in 25?32'Aries with MP Mars / Uranus = 25 ? 24'Capricorn, and Radix Uranus in aspect.
The Lunar Return to April 20, 2002 for Weipa has 48'Sagitario ASC = 11?48'Sagitarius and Saturn = 12? 19'Geminis.
If we progress the MC of the Solar Return (1? = 1day), we have MC = 15 ? Pisces (April 23, 2002) and the ASC = 12? Gemini (23 April 2002).
This could serve to make a small fix in time, but in my opinion it is correct and verifies that the day of death was 23 or April 24, 2002.
Kind REgards
Mario

His method is simple...if the results don't agree with the facts then rectify the chart until it does. As a professional engineer in applied science, this is the most ridiculous and pompous and arrogant BS I have ever heard.

But isn't that the point and procedure of all (everyone's) rectification? Granted, some people may go about it better than others.

We don't build bridges and stadiums with astrology. Ours is an activity of insight, and insight comes in flashes ? flashes that can be inhibited or misdirected by unnecessary or extravagant feats of engineering.

Relevant to the topic, I would like to hear of participant's experiences of insight ? intuition ? as to where to begin and how to proceed with this project. Did anyone have an 'Ah-ha, I should look here using this method' moment, or did you start (and faithfully continue?) with a procedure you usually use?

Kirk:

We don't build bridges and stadiums with astrology. Ours is an activity of insight, and insight comes in flashes ? flashes that can be inhibited or misdirected by unnecessary or extravagant feats of engineering.

Well said !

Then again, engineers and mathematicians need flashes of insight, too.
For the best results one should use both sides of the brain as one "wholistic" unit.

Deb wrote:I wonder if the desire to reduce this event down to a statistical probability sort of 'misses the wood for the trees'? It seems to me that the most fundamental key is a very dramatic signature in the birth chart, and it was the reinforcement of this signature which brought its potential into manifestation at the particular time. Everything else is a pointer towards that. I have never been interested in trying to track the minutiae of people?s lives; and here I think the task involved finding the bigger picture and keeping the emphasis on that. Will someone get a 'reproducible method' out of this? I don't think so for a second. I hope to write more about the themes that struck me later in the week, when I have a bit more available time.

It is the right and the duty of every serious astrologer not to accept blindly every technique, either traditional or modern, no matter how impressive is the result for one single event. I don't recognize any better test method than statistics, of course if one knows how to do it properly.
AquaStella:
"Astrology is not calculus"
Psychology is also not calculus, yet every high level psychology book or journal have a lot of statistics, the same for any natural or social sciences.
"Astrology is a celestial art"
Fine, therefore it is a combination of symbols and numbers.

Psychology is also not calculus, yet every high level psychology book or journal have a lot of statistics, the same for any natural or social sciences.

The fact the "psychologists" use statistical methods and graphs for publishing "scientific" papers (publish or perish) still doesn't prove psychology is a valid science. It only proves psycholgists wish to present it as such. They often "engineer" and "design" their "research" in order to come up with "desirable results".

Instead of questioning the birth time I am re-considering my used primary direction. Although the coordinates of the birth place aren't given (I believe?) I estimate the PD MC and Asc in 27?Aries and 16?Leo respectively. With my estimated year 2005 I got PD MC and Asc further then the square to natal Moon and Neptune respectively. With this one the number of degrees for both is 2? before exact. Several conclusions can be made:
Either
- birth time shuld be corrected 8 minutes, but trusting the time we could
- adjust the key or
- use another reference frame or
- widen the orb or
- consider (my) use of only directing MC and Asc as too meagre or
- in the worst case doubt the use of PD's.

This is what's going on in my thoughts and how I consider such issues, although the last option would be also the very last choice unless in many other cases I won't get satisfying results at all.

Hello UniqueAstrology,

I can certainly relate. I would have also have loved to use Topocentric Primary Directions in this challenge, but with a rounded birthtime (assumed to the minute), it was impossible to rectify the chart and use them.

The result, I had to try and use other methods to arrive at an answer. Everyone has mutability somewhere in their chart, so sometimes, one just has to ADAPT.

I am not belittling your technique. All ideas are worthy of at least being looked at. Perhaps, with the initial conditions of this challenge, your "normal" tool was not the best one to use. I AM behind you in the idea that we must ever try to have the most accurate times as possible. For astrologers, it's the INITIAL PREMISE from which all things flow. An error here, propagates down the line!

Re: "What would any of you have done? Am I to believe you would have ditched decades of successful research in light of the results in 1 case?"

I don't understand. If you have thousands of cases where it works, why would one "anomaly" be a major cause for concern. I would just write it off as "not accurate enough birthtime for that particular technique" and then move on. I DO understand having a technique that you have seen work with amazing results and having the desire to share/show that technique. I am the same way about Topocentric Primary Directions.

Then you said, "Nobody here has, to my knowledge, taken the minimal amount of time necessary to learn and apply the technique to charts with verified recorded birth times and seen the extremely accurate results I have never failed to see and without being aware of its history, dismiss its veracity."

I would love to give you an example case with verified (in document) and rectified 1 m 16 sec to be absolutely correct. I have quite a few events. I don't bring this up because I need info or because I need my name/info in front of everyone's eyes. It's just that this is the best data that I have...the one of which I am most sure, ie. MINE.

If you're up for the "challenge", I am game. I had already looked at your technique and saw impressive initial results.... with an example I can work along with AND your tutelage, maybe more will see/understand/use your technique. I am open for anything that WORKS.

We can also discuss it in EMail if that is better.

TMC

Eddy,

Re: Primary Directions

Using the given birthtime, Topocentric Primary Directions give:

Mars semi-sextile Uranus (0? 1' orb)

Uranus opposite 8th (0? 2' orb)

Pushing the birthtime forward 15 seconds makes both directions almost 0. Still, that doesn't mean that's right. You can't rectify and verify a chart with just one event, since there are no out-of-sample Events to test the rectification with...

Good luck with your studies, Eddy. Don't write off PD's...you'll find a system that works.

TMC

Thanks TMC, however I usually don't use planet to planet directions because I want to rule out the risk that there is a too high chance of always finding some direction.

Hi RegulusAstrology

Thanks very much for a really interesting post ? I hope to come back to a couple of your points when I can find the time to give my own review . Thanks also to the contributors who are continuing to discuss the chart, and not getting too sidetracked into the discussion on the data. I will make one last point about that, so everyone understands why I feel so strongly that the point should be dropped.

This was never a rectification exercise. The reason I stated, explicitly, from the start, that the data can be presumed to be ?reasonably accurate? was to clarify that; so that no one would attempt to recreate the ignominious post-challenge complaints that the rectification challenge descended to. Because that thread became so difficult at the end, all moderators are wary about proposing these otherwise useful threads. We have the ridiculous scenario of inevitable criticism ? because either the data is in the public domain, so other contributors are suspected of cheating; or the data is not in the public domain, so the data is suspected of being dirty. I was so concerned about that not happening here, that I even created a preliminary thread to lay out the proposed scenario. Unique Astrology contributed to that thread with the full understanding of what I was proposing, and recommended that I proceed. For him to raise these concerns now proves that nothing I could have done would ever have been suitable for his required conditions, unless it allowed him to prove the technique that he champions as his own.

I was especially wary that this should not happen, because what might be regarded as being mereley one of thousands and thousands of cases is actually a very unique and personal case history. It is a sensitive and tragic situation that we are discussing here and there was never any dispute about the data ? it was delivered without hesitation and timed to the minute. Astrologers who already know everything and have a singular knowledge of infallible techniques should really stay out of these challenges. As I have repeatedly emphasised, they are offered as opportunities for members to step into a situation that a working astrologer has faced or might face, so that students of astrology can think about how the problem might be approached and resolved.

If members want to have challenges and competitions on a one to one basis, please do it elsewhere and not here. This was not a competition but a scenario for which each contributor could test their own understanding. Those who have found it constructive realised that limitations were factored in; just as they are often factored into the real life situations that astrologers regularly deal with. In this case the family did not want or expect a rectification of the birth time; and when they gave me the birth time they did not expect that it would be disputed.

Anyone who suggests that the time must be wrong because it doesn?t produce their expected result has obviously failed to understand the essential purpose of this thread. A test of whether their comments are ego-driven will be seen in whether they can now, having had their say, conclude that this thread is ?not for them? and stay out of it; or will they insist that the rest of us must be persuaded to their viewpoint too?

This morning I received a very interesting offer that might contribute to the basis of a similar thread sometime in the future. That would involve the identification of a lottery win for a couple, one of whom has an accurate ?to the minute? recorded birth time. I have also considered using (with his permission) my own son?s ?to the minute? unpublished data as the basis of a rectification exercise. But these threads have to stop being taken over at the end by the posts that want to argue against something negative, rather than those that want to discuss something positive.

For that reason I will be very pleased if further contributions keep the focus on what we can assess in the light of what is now known about this chart; without questioning its data. I am not personally concerned which techniques are discussed: traditional and modern are equally welcome, but let?s keep the discussion constructive so that we have good reason to repeat these kinds of experiments in the future.

Deb

Hello Eddy,

Re: "Thanks TMC, however I usually don't use planet to planet directions because I want to rule out the risk that there is a too high chance of always finding some direction."

If one uses tight enough orbs and sticks to true symbolism, one can't always find "some direction", because there aren't enough in order to do so. The problem comes in with large orbs and varying symbolism.

In the accident, there is a very tight Mars-Uranus aspect (normally a "definition" symbolization for "accident") and you have TIGHTLY Uranus opposing the 8th (Topocentric). If this were a chart that we were trying to rectify, these are of the type of events that we would "want" to see for the described event.

If the symbolism were wrong or the orbs not very, very tight, then there would be no point in bringing it up, because it could be merely coincidence.

Have fun!

TMC