Skyscript Astrology Forum

I was alerted to this discussion and have joined the forum to add some information re Johndro charts.

I have the two Johndro books that are referred to.

Also Barbara Watters 1971 book "Sex and the Outer Planets" which has an appendix on the formula for casting Johndro birth location charts. Perhaps it would be helpful if I summarised that?

Sarah

A Johndro Chart uses "locality angles" ie takes the locality of the native or event to establish the Asc and MC. Barbara Watters was taking the place of the significant event in the case of murderers whose time of birth was unknown. Sometimes this varied from birth place but not in the case of Lizzie Borden.

Johndro's theory was that there is a close interplay between the individual and the environment. He believed in physical (cosmic electromagnetic) influences at work in the place where an individual happens to be and that these could be very "fateful".

Fixed stars are very important to Johndro for example he writes "If a man's planets configure large magnitude stars he will make himself heard afar and if they configure smaller magnitude stars his range will be less"
He uses both RA and declination for the stars. He believed the individual nature of the fixed stars that were remote from the ecliptic were studied in very ancient times but the knowledge was not preserved in the records handed down to Ptolemy's time.

Fixed stars are centres of radiant energy which amplify the tendencies of the planets. The stars emit the electromagnetic waves and the planets reflect them according to their individual nature or "frequency of oscillatory responses" - Johndro was an electrical engineer!

To explain this to the reader he gives two analogies:
1) The fixed stars and the Sun's light frequency waves can be likened to the carrier wave of a radio transmitter. Planetary frequencies to the audio frequency that is being transmitted.
2) The Sun and stars light waves are Paul Revere's horse (!) and the planet's frequencies are Paul himself. Without the horse the message would not have gone so far. Without Paul, the horse would have been unable to pass on the message - the horse is dumb.
When a planet moves to conjunction with the Sun or a star in either plane of the earth's movement (ecliptic or RA) it intersects the star's radial field and its frequency is imposted on the stars light frequency wave.

I will do another post summarising how to do a Johndro chart. - if you can stand some more of the 20th Century. Having just produced one for a significant place in my life that is far from my birthplace I am beginning to see the value which is greater than that achieved through astro-location maps.

Sarah

For Information Purposes - Please do not shoot the messenger

In "Sex and the Outer Planets" Barbara Watters gives the formula used for casting the Johndro charts which give primary consideration to the place of birth or residence rather than the time of birth.

In Johndro's book "The Earth in the Heavens" he gives an explanation on the precessional factor for RA. He uses Greenwich but states that the coincidence of Greenwich with the vernal equinox actually happened in 365BC so the first calculation rectifies this.

The annual rate is 46.10 seconds per year (not 50.25 seconds as it is on the ecliptic).

Taking (his chosen year) 1930 figure of 29 degrees 10 minutes you multiply the number of years before or after 1930 by the annual rate and subtract or add the result to get the RAMC for Greenwich for the desired year.

Then taking the latitude of the birthplace you add for East, subtract for West (and add 360 degrees if the longitude to be subtracted is greater than the RAMC in Greenwich which it will be for the USA).

This gives the RAMC for the desired location.

Now, take the position of the Sun for the date of birth in the correct year from your ephemeris.

Enter a table of RA to discover the RA of the sun for that degree.
Add this factor to you previous sum.
This gives the RAMC for the place and date of birth.

With a table of Houses for the appropriate latitude of the birth place use this RAMC to establish the cusps of houses.

If the birth hour is known figure out the correct positions of the planets and place within the Johndro locality chart
Otherwise enter the planets as shown in the ephemeris for noon or midnight GMT as the case may be (!)
Note on the chart the hour this would be at the location
eg if using a noon ephemeris the hour in NYC for the given planetary positions would be 7am, with a midnight ephemeris it would be 7pm

Barbara then works an example using the USA 1776 chart.

Johndro's book - which I got in a second hand bookshop in Glasgow, Scotland - has a useful table of cities of the world and their latitudes, RAMC's, midheaven's and ascendants.


Sarah

I join our moderator in expressing thanks to Sarah for taking the time to outline the basics of Johndro's method. But relative to applying that method in determining the astrological influences of fixed stars (and of ascendant degrees when time of birth or event ARE known), I submit gives results which are inferior to those we can obtain by the application of traditional techniques.
-In "Fixed Stars", Robson mentions right ascension for determining star position as essentially something the reader might want to experiment with (he gives the math for determining position by r.a. with latitude and also r.a. without latitude, in the appendix of his book; he gives r.a. tables, with annual variation, dated 1920, and latitude, in the earlier part of the book) The old time astrologers were quite familiar with right ascension and the principles of its application, yet virtually all of them chose not to apply it for determining star positions. Why? I suggest the old astrologers' application of traditional methods in determining star position yielded more precise and reliable indications for astrological analytical and predictive purposes, than using r.a. did. Even moderns like the Ebertins still used traditional methods to determine ecliptic longitude and declinations for the star positions, not r.a. The traditional methods simply give better results. For example, if we look at the indications in Robson for the (speculated) Zosma position (as detemined by non-traditional methods) and then compare those indications with Zavijava (my posting above), its position found through the use of traditional method, the precision of the latter star's indications (within the over-all context of the Borden natal chart and the events of her actual life) fit much more closely than those of Zosma.
-I don't knock any whole-system-model (like Johndro's) or any experimental innovation (star postion by r.a.), however for me (personally) the old-time methods have proven their worth in actual practice, and have demonstrated their great reliability in the analysis of macrocosmic influences.

If the question is "Did she do it?" Probably only she will ever know.
If the question is "Was she capable of doing it?", her chart indicates "yes", in my opinion.
I don't use fixed stars at all, i think her chart has clear indications without them, although adding Neptune and Chiron adds a lot of weight.

Lizzie was born with a separating conjunction of the Sun and Venus, both opposing a retrograde Mars. Venus is also retrograde.
The Martian and Venusian energy gives her passion and sexuality but neither is able to be easily fulfilled. A retrograde Mars is indicative of great energy constantly thwarted (I have a retro Mars as well, angled as a Sun/Mars Quincunx)
Venus conjunct the Sun gives great beauty, and an ability to give amazing sexual pleasure, but again, Lizzie's desires are not easily brought into physical reality.

I think she would chafed badly at the constraints of women in her time. Her temper tantrums would have been frightening, and get worse as she aged and became more sexually frustrated.

Chiron is not a traditional planet but I think it is so important to show the applying opposition to Saturn which is the traditional malefic. She would never have been able to stomach a marriage.

If the time is correct then the Moon squares Pluto in the fixed signs of Taurus and Leo, so her emotions are already deep, powerful but capable of great destruction.

I think using traditional methods with the full complement of planets is better than pulling up fixed stars and obscure angles.

When the murder was committed, Pluto and Neptune were conjunct over Lizzie's Uranus and Saturn was opposing her natal Neptune and sextiling her Sun/Venus.
Jupiter was Squaring her Mars and Trining her Saturn.
Uranus was just starting to square her Jupiter.

Lizzie was also Virgo rising (if the time was correct), so it is believable that she could commit a grisly murder yet not be dirty with blood later.

While all these indicate a VERY big occurance or occurances in her life, I think we can at least be sure she was capable of murder, and finicky enough to plan and execute carefully.

I speak from personal experience when I say that a Mars/Sun connected person cannot be pushed around forever, they will breakout. I'm glad my angles are softer than hers...whew!