Lithin posted a very good link to the case. Abigail was not shot in the head, their mother was shot in the head, also at the time of the incident they were living in Townsend, MA .

In addition, this was the second time the murderer was in their home, : (Copied from Records)
"On November 16, 1987, between 11:30 A.M. and 3:30 P.M., someone broke into the Gustafson home. Among other things, the thief took a cordless telephone, two cable television boxes, a cable television remote control device, and some coins from a Liberty silver dollar collection."

I will copy and paste the rest of the info below, for the entire case, here is the link: http://www.masscases.com/cases/sjc/416/416mass433.html

"At approximately 5 P.M. on December 1, 1987, Andrew Gustafson discovered the body of his wife, Priscilla Gustafson, on the bed in the master bedroom of the family's home in Townsend.
She died as a result of two shots at close range with a .22 caliber firearm. The shots were fired through a pillow which lay on top of the victim's head.

Gustafson telephoned the police immediately, who, on arrival, discovered the bodies of Gustafson's two children, William, five years old, and Abigail, almost eight years old.
The police found William's body face down in the tub in the upstairs bathroom.
The police discovered Abigail's body face down in the tub in the downstairs bathroom. The cause of death of both children was drowning. Additionally, Abigail suffered blunt trauma to the head and compression of the neck.


It is interestting to note that it started out as a burglary, and happened to be the 2nd time their house was burglarized.

when i get thru with this set of charts, i look forward to looking at primary directions off charts with a more positive spin.. for the moment i am going to articulate my thoughts on the final one in this episode - daniel laplante, who was the fellow held responsible for the murders and burglary. his chart is listed as AA at adb http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/LaPlante,_Daniel

here is an informative link giving dates around this case, including the verdict which was handed down as guilty on oct 25th 1988.
http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.n ... .3/mb.ashx

i make a connection with incarceration and the 12th house. i associate the burglary and theft as some negative mercurial influence, while the act to murder someone, a conflicted mars, along with perhaps saturn and if using outer planets - pluto...perhaps others see this differently.. perhaps there is some system in place from the traditional astro pov to break this down that i am unaware of and would like to be enlightened on.

here is laplantes chart - inside wheel, with the solar returns for 1987, followed by same with sr data for 88.


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here is the primary direction data simplfied without minor aspects, and leaving the outer planets off. first i give the zodiac positioned data, followed by the data in mundo.


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This is quite an interesting thread. I have never really wanted to know anyone's length of life. Never wanted to learn it either. I never wanted to be able to see or dilineate it in a chart either. However, I am curious as to what in the charts would let one know that their length of life was to be short, both for Abigail and her brother William. I have not seen a good enough astrological dilineation that would explain these two charts. William however, his natal chart is entirely ruled by Mars and I haven't had a chance to look at that yet, except for a cursory glance. I haven't run a solar return either.

However I did run one on Abigail, and after my computer freezing up many times, and hours going by just to get the info, I have run out of time now to study the chart themselves.

I am posting the Abigails charts, with the Solar return in the middle, the Natal in the second ring and the transits in the third, quite interesting.

In light of the burglary, it would be interesting to use some of the horary techniques in addition to others. But like James, if anyone can delineate an early death from the Natal chart, I would be most interested to read it, and learn from it.

Here is the chart I ran: Some interesting configurations

first off, it is no easy task to pull all the info from different charts together to make an informed astrological conclusion..laplante was charged and found guilty.. sometimes it happens the person found guilty is the wrong person and i think it's worth keeping in mind..

transit data it's quite possible laplante broke into the gustafsons house nov 16th given the cross overs in the transit data to his chart.. the transit data to his chart for the date of the multiple murders has t saturn forming a close opposition to his natal venus ruler of the many planets in taurus, midheaven and the 3rd house, along with jupiter in libra. t mars is in a 2 degree orb via 135/45 to this venus opp t saturn, and brought closer if you work with the midpoint to natal venus/mars conjunction in laplantes chart. the natal moon/pluto conjunction in his chart is also much a part of this transit of both saturn and mars. one could say mars and saturn are very involved by transit to a most difficult dynamic in his natal chart.

solar return data whether one looks at the solar return for 87 - which would apply to the murder and the beginning of his incarceration/trial, or the solar return for 88 which would cover more of the same and guilty verdict, there is much in both of these charts to confirm the seriousness and heaviness of the events unfolding in laplantes life during this period.. i have not bothered to find the hyleg, as i felt this wasn't going to be useful here.. perhaps someone can give me feedback on this if they see it differently.

very quickly - the 87 sr ascendant sitting next to the moon/pluto conjunction highlights the ruler of the 12th strongly, while the position of saturn - ruler of the 6/7 also put great stress on this same natal moon position. the conjunction of mars/midheaven in opposition to the saturn/moon in the 87 sr chart emphasize more of the conflictual dynamics i would associate with these events.. this pattern goes right back to the square in the natal chart emphasizing the venus/mars conjunction square the moon/pluto conjunction with the added weight of both malefic's and angles on the natal pattern.

the 88 sr midheaven again emphasizes the moon, and by extension the same problematic square in the natal chart. the position of sr 88 mars right on the descendant looks genuinely malevolent squaring onto the natal sun almost exactly as well.. it is interesting in that mars would appear to rule the 9th and 4th houses. one can see running foul of the law with the 9th house connection, but i am wondering what the tie in with the 4th house is.. apparently the gustafson's house was about a 20 minute walk from laplantes residence, so it is in the area of his home, but i wonder about his home life, or lack of home life and home it shaped his actions. neptune in opp to the sun and in the 4th paints a picture of the absence of a father figure to me, or one that was not helpful to this childs development. this would be emphasized further perhaps with the sun/saturn position up near the midheaven, but this is moving into psycho astrology which i don't want to focus on here.. perhaps others see something i am missing..

primary direction datakeeping in mind laplante is said to have terrorized another family december 86, looking at the primary directions does not give a clear picture on his actions or his ultimate incarceration as i see it. i suppose it helps to know what to look for! there are directions involving saturn opp jupiter, which include the 5,6,7, and 8th house rulers.. there is also a pd of jupiter converse opp to mercury, the ruler of the 11th and 2nd.. pd jupiter is in opp to the midheaven exact nov 6/1988. all in all, the 3rd house jupiter would seem to be quite active by primary direction in the zodiac pd's... the pd sun squares onto the nodal axis may 87 while the pd nodal axis sextile/trines the sun dec 88 as well.. i am not sure how to integrate the nodal axis here with the ruler of laplantes ascendant, but generally the nodal axis gets a bad rap.. the ruler of the north node - jupiter is again highlighted.. the nodal axis sits at the mars/neptune midpoint for those into midpoints and making a connection with sexual problems/counterproductive actions and mars/neptune here..

in the mundane primary directions we see pd mercury directed to opp jupiter, pd jupiter directed to a trine of venus, the nodal axis directed to the descendant/ascendant, pd jupiter converse to the ic, and for jan 22 1989 pd mundo moon directed to a sextile of jupiter.. this last one is interesting in so far as it combines the 12th and 8th house rulers and would fit with the idea of laplantes incarceration.. unfortunately i am unable to see any outstanding primary direction to describe what has happened in laplante life in this time frame, nearly so well as i feel the symbols connect with the solar return data and to an extent with the transit data.. feedback anyone?

Good morning,

May one doubt Professor Gansten's reading of Klaudios Ptolomaios' Tetrabiblos, Book IV, Section 9 to attribute death by drowning or generally by water to Saturn?

Here is the relevant text from the English translations of Professor Frank Robbins and Mr J. M. Ashmand (bold emphasis added):

"Now then, if Saturn holds the lordship of death, he brings about the end through long illness, phthisis, rheumatism, colliquations, chills and fever, and splenic, dropsical, enteric, or hysteric conditions, and such as arise through excesses of cold."

"Thus, for example, if the dominion of death be vested in Saturn, he will produce death by means of lingering diseases; cough, rheumatism, flux, ague, disorder of the spleen, dropsy, colic, and complaints in the womb; and, in short, by all such diseases as proceed from the superabundance of cold."

Although the word derives from water, even in ancient Greek dropsy is a particular, chronic disease, not sudden drowning, although slow accumulation of liquid is involved. Here is a short definition from Wikionary:

"Etymology - Ultimately from Ancient Greek ????? (hudr?ps), from ???? (hudor, ?water?).

Noun dropsy (usually uncountable; plural dropsies)

(pathology) Swelling, edema, often from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD.

1911 The disease under which Addison laboured appears to have been asthma. It became more violent after his retirement from office, and was now accompanied by dropsy. ? "Joseph Addison", Encyclop?dia Britannica."

A general attribution of drowning and other deaths involving water to Saturn based on the above text appears exaggerated if not mistaken.

Best regards,

lihin

Lihin,

"but (Saturn) in Virgo and Pisces, or the watery signs, if the moon is in aspect, by drowning and suffocation in water;"

page 433 of the Robbins translation.

GR wrote:Lihin,

"but (Saturn) in Virgo and Pisces, or the watery signs, if the moon is in aspect, by drowning and suffocation in water;"

page 433 of the Robbins translation.

Thanks, Gabe. Lihin: if you're going to criticize, please do your homework first. Incidentally, Ashmand didn't translate the original text of Ptolemy, but only the paraphrase by Proclus.

Thanks to MorningSun for correcting the ADB information. Blunt trauma to the head still counts as Mars, I'd say.

james_m wrote:getting back to the chart however, one would be remiss not to point out how the pd data and the transit data is nowhere near as nice a fit as your first example!

The way I see it, transits mostly make sense in relation to other techniques, so we have to look at those first. And no, there isn't much happening by direction, as I said before. Then again, the most that would be happening by the age of 5 would be the tightening of radical aspects (of which there aren't many). There is a little more in the profections, primarily Mars on the MC squaring the ascendant, with the Sun (ruler of the ascendant in my, sidereal, book) opposing this Mars by transit.

i thought i might be able to make it work by seeing the connections in the solar return chart to this pof, but alas even that has now been blowin' away..

If you mean the Lot of Fortune as hyleg, I'm not surprised you can't make it work.

if primary directions are going to gain any momentum in the astro community, they are going to have to make sense even in examples such as williams case, as i see it..

Goodness. Primary directions have had two millennia of 'momentum'; they are not some new invention waiting to prove itself. No one has to learn the technique if s/he doesn't want to; but you can't expect to make sense of a technical subject by trying to pick it up piecemeal. And using directions as a stand-alone technique is not the traditional way.

Personally, I think the main point about William's nativity is that it is so weak to begin with. All planets are below the horizon, and none is qualified to be hyleg, so this reverts to the ascendant, the (sidereal) ruler of which is cadent, in its fall, and applying to the (sidereal) ruler of the 8th within just over 1?. The Moon, ruler of the sect, is closely squared by Mars (albeit separating), with no other aspects. Both the benefics are cadent and combust, while both the malefics are succedent; there are no angular planets. Any directions, profections, etc, have to be seen in the light of these radical configurations.

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SolarFire and Janus evaluate correctly that horoscope is preventional. Therefore chosen as hyleg PF. They forget, as Martin said, that Ptolemy recognized as hylegical place 10, 1, 11, 7 and 9 houses. Therefore hyleg is ascendant. Only Porfhyrius Magus hyleg determined correctly. Arab astrologers would consider Moon or PF. Candidates for alchocoden are at Asc - Moon and Mars. Moon gives about 4.9 years of life. Mars gives a little over 7 years. Moon or PF gives as hyleg Saturn. Here it is difficult to assess the effect of the Moon. When you subtract the full years and considering the influence of Mars, we can get into negative numbers. In any event alchocoden shows a small life span (better life force).

Martin

Thank you for this example, it was very useful to follow.

Martin Gansten wrote: All of these are calculated in the zodiac, without latitude. Although Jupiter is conjunct Mars within a couple of degrees, the square of a single benefic entering into the mixture is not likely to avert the misfortune.

Also Jupiter is (tropically at least) in detriment and contrary to sect, so we can imagine that Jupiter has little to no benefic power in this chart anyway. Of course sidereally it will still be out of sect and so still has its benefice reduced. If we see the North Node as augmenting what it touches, then again it is just augmenting the general malefice of the Mars Jupiter conjunction anyway.