Hi Gem,

Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware this was in the public domain. I must try and find the full article.

Guess its back to the drawing board for another suitable test!

The Chair of my Astrology Association is a genealogist so maybe she can find something quite obscure....

I suppose if one was really serious about testing this out there would need to be a sample of charts which would include those dying in such a mass tragedy and those not. It would also need to be a double blind trial where both the astrologer and researcher dealing with the astrologer were ignorant of the actual truth.

I was in a hurry this morning and here is the direct link:
www.considerations-mag.com/articles/whoWillSurvive.htm

I don't think this needs to be a test or blind trail if what we're looking for is signitures of death or indications of a significant event in those charts. The children's data may be in the AstrodataBank collection too.

Hi Gem,

I cannot get the second link to work. However, its its clear enough from the first link you gave which article it concerns. The data of the victims and the pupils and teachers surviving is not on this online version but is available in the published version of the article (see Considerations volume XIII number 1, February-April 1998, pages 33-54). Back issues are available.

I suppose blind trials are not essential. As I see it there are two ways to research the topic.

Firstly we have the method used by Ken Gillman. Here he is working with a defined set of astrological signatures (Lilly's) against any suitable charts tested. As it stands this is a fascinating piece of research.

The only problem is that it would be hard to apply such an approach to the astrological community as a whole. Some astrologers will use modern orbs while others will use traditional moeity orbs. Others might insist on the outer planets while others reject them completely. Some might want parts included while others insist mid-points or asteroids are crucial. Even in traditional astrology there would be a difference of emphasis between hellenistic, medieval and early modern sources. So unless we could ALL agree a selection of key signatures beforehand such as Gillman uses we would end up in the usual astrological muddle. I do think Gillman's method is very interesting. With a selection of charts such as the Dublane massacre many traditional assumptions can be put to the test empirically.

The method more common and acceptable to para-psychologists though is the blind trial. Here the astrologers would have no sight of the charts beforehand and neither would the researcher. The charts would be a selection of those killed in a mass tragedy and those not. For the purposes of a trial you could agree a set of signatures or not. This would be a test of both the astrologer and their techniques.

Mark

I now see why you referred to employing blind trials, havning re-read the article. Gillman's method is still valid to test any astrological approach. Blind trrials would be a very intriguing test for astrology, although the question of wheter we can predict death violent or otherwise may not be directly related to the two main issues which have been raised so far in this thread: 1) whether any indications of significant events appear in the charts of people who were involved in mass disasters; and 2) the hierarchy of charts.

PS I've corrected the direct link.in which Gillman examines the charts against Lilly's astrological signitures of a violent d

john wrote:Mike, thanks for the response. I thought I should acknowledge the Greece earthquake last night with the recording of two deaths.

Any more event charts that show a potential for damage?

Sorry it took me so long to reply to this but I get very busy with work. the earthquake which has just occurred in Japan on the morning of the 14th local time, illustrates my ideas to some extent in my original posting. Ie I mentioned that the mid month period was dangerous because of the Mars transit creating the opposition to Neptune and the way that aspects tied in with everything else.

Locally the Mars - Neptune opposition was rising at the time of the earthquake. The closest aspect was derived from Venus in its conjunction with the Sun, and this was cast to Neptune.

Lunar aspects through fixed signs link all the action of course since the opposition is in fixed Signs and the Moon will cast its rays from Jupiter to Neptune. The Honshu earthquake happened as the Moon entered into Scorpio. I've noticed this before that when an aspect pattern is going to be formed by the Moon's transit of a sign, especially fixed signs earthquakes often coincide with the entrance of the Moon into the sign. Presumably this is helped here by the very recent completion of the Venus aspect to Neptune.

Yet again with Honshu if you look at planetary latitude for the event there is interest there - Venus is quite close to the Ecliptic and of course it has just been bodily conjuct with the Sun . Its joined around the Ecliptic by Jupiter, and by Neptune, and more widely by Uranus. So yet again you have an alignment bunching around the same 'Great Circle" passing through the earth and those planets. THis kind of bunching of planets seems to occur time and again in earthquakes of note. Ie all close in latitude. However it has to be said I was looking at this date and the potential for earthquakes , and cast it to one side because if you look at the latitude factor Venus is rising in latitude and Jupiter and Neptune are closing together moving south, so there was no mass crossing at work.

However it intrigues me that in this current period we have the added dimension that the lunar nodes are close to the opposition of Mars/Nep ie the intersection of Earth and Moon orbits is tied in with these alignments through Neptune's closeness to the ecliptic. I Know that may be a bit vague but I have an ultra close natal conjunction between Neptune and Mercury so I guess its only to be expected

On a more general note to illustrate my thinking I take the paramount signifier of earthquakes as aspect patterns that bring in Jupiter and Neptune in difficult asoect pictures. Ie Jupiter as an amplifier and Neptune representing the wave motion of the event.
I take the presence of the active planets ie Mars and Uranus in aspect tie ups as showing the energetic side of the event.
I take the hard aspects as showing the forces at work in real time, and often quincunxes occur which makes sense when you consider an earthquake is a realignment of forces in a catastrophic fashion!

Also look at the presence of fixed sign action and also of Fixed sign lunations or lunar transits. It strikes me as pertinent when irresistable forces meet immovable objects something has to break which is exactly what happens in an earthquake with faulting of the ground!

Finally I use the faster moving planets as translators of the action or collectors of the action just like in horaries, thus completing event charts before technically the slower moving planets have moved into position.

Spinning aspect patterns in time-motion in a computer program helps

I do also have ideas on how to locate earthquakes but I still have difficulties with testing those ideas so I'll leave that aside for another time!
regards mike cooper

Hello all,

I'm the person Mark is speaking of, who's the genealogist and also Chair (reluctantly!) of the Scottish Astrological Association. I'm also the person who researched the Dunblane data.

Everyone who requested the data (and had to do so via myself or Lois Rodden) was asked to use it with discretion, ie never splash it all over somewhere public. Hamilton's data, fair enough. But not that of the children. To put it mildly, this is "sensitive" stuff, and will remain so for decades. I was extremely cross (substitute any other adjective you choose) when it was published in "Considerations". Wrote to the editor and he ignored me... And now he's put it online???

If anyone ever sees it online anywhere, please let me know and also ask the relevant webmaster to take it off.

Thanks, everyone.

Caroline

kannan wrote: How do we explain, astrologically, mass death due to cyclone, earth quake etc. Does it mean in every horoscope of the dead the time of death is the same ? Kannan

Oh, this is one of those "does astrology still exist if we are born on a different planet" questions I like these.

I say no. I reckon the event will be the focus, rather than the person. Of course, that may bring up difficulty when asking "If it works for 10 people in a random bomb attack, why not for 100 in a bomb attack?"

Tricky question to answer but is worth thought and research.

My answer is NO, but I expect the natal chart of the victims family/friends will each show something that indicates the loss on their part. That is where to look.

We are awiting to hear from Isaac on the methods used by him to predict death in his 300 sample charts . Will be helpful to the readers

Kannan

This is a interesting discussion, and I'm droping by just to share my opinion on the matter.

Recently I wrote an article (to myself only, actually) to answer this question in a ordely manner. Since I wrote it in my mother language, I can not share it in it's entirety right now (little time to translate) but I'll try to synthesize my opinion in a few lines:

1 - Astrology is not exactly a divine system, it is a human construct based on our perception of the divine. Therefore, it is not perfect, just like anything material is not perfect (now, you may or may not consider the divine perfect, but in my opinion even the worst definition of the divine would have to accept that it is not likely to be fully comprehended anyway, since our perception can not be complete, when we are bound to a world that we understand and perceive as imperfect from the very start, and since nowadays the divine is generally accepted as not physicall...).
2 - That being said, I believe that every victim of a mass tragedy was fated to die at that precise moment. Now, it would be preposterous to believe that we could determine death in every case for several reasons, as follows:

a - For astrologers, the same planet has diverse symbolic meanings, and often, it is the context that we acquire through interaction regarding the life of the subject that allows us to make a prediction. Thechnique alone is not enough, otherwise, how would you make a difference from twins with almost exactly equal charts, or even astrological twins with very dissimilar fates? To determine this difference by context, rather than by, say, a 3? of difference in the ascendants, would be much more profitable. Even if you magnify these differences through any one technique, a good talk or research is generally the way to go.

b - Astrology is very limited, since it is a limited and very general imitation of the heavenly motions, added with subjective thinking. It is in fact so limited, that through symbolic elements, we can say several things, but it is barely feasible to say some others, making it harder the more precision demanded.

c - It would be absurd that all the possibible astrological scenarios that leads to death have been compiled in the literature.

d - It would be even more absurd that every possible scenario that leads to death in the literature can be accessed at once, by men or machine, and therefore, comprehended as such, before or after an event.

e - astrology becomes twice imperfect, once in it's conception as stated, twice when used, since it depends on interpretation, not on exact correlation.

That all, to say that I do not dismiss the chart hierarchy explanation, but I do find it incomplete. The mundane chart is simply the best option for such types of prediction, because it is much less likely for you to miss the mark with a single one chart than to analyse 30.000 charts, or even a small sample of those (which is seldom, if ever, a productive course, even in a hyphotesis to try and prove something).

I realize this is an old discussion, but since PFN just revived it, maybe the topic can be discussed again.

I think we have to face the possibility that astrology may not be good at predicting or post-dicting death, at least not on a mass scale.

I realize death prediction was an important topic for traditional astrologers in the past, yet some of them (like Morin) were wrong in highly publicized cases. Perhaps corporeal death is merely a birth into a new dimension, and we wouldn't imagine predicting the timing of births on a mass scale.

Any technique for predicting or analysing a natural disaster would have to be extremely place-specific. The reason is that planetary positions will be similar in different places at the moment an earthquake strikes, yet most places will not be directly affected. For example, the chart of transits for the 2010 Haiti earthquake probably would not look so different from the chart of Miami, Florida for the same time, yet Florida did not get hit.

As Mike Coop noted, above, earthquakes ocur on the earth's surface ongoingly. Most of them are relatively harmless because they happen in lightly populated areas. Mass casualties from a natural disaster require a large population concentration, architectural and transportation insufficiencies, a government incapable of acting quickly, and problems with access by first responders. These social factors cannot be read off a horoscope for the moment of a disaster.

As far as theological/theodicy arguments go, the Bible suggests that human rationales are not God's rationales, and we cannot always comprehend His purposes. The Bible itself undergoes a kind of ethical evolution, in which the earlier OT blaming of tragedy on human sin gives way to a more patient belief in God's inscrutability, as per the Book of Job. Ironically, the idea that "the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children" seems materially correct in the case of disasters where poor government preparedness, vastly unequal income structures, and prior environmental mismanagement intersect with a natural event to produce a large-scale human tragedy.