Traditional astrology

Sadesati

2022-07-25T18:15:00.000+00:00

On the peak of the Saturn's transit over my natal Moon, I found my mother dead. I arranged a modest funeral and spent two weeks cleaning the flat from old newspapers, worn clothes and brick-a-brac. How symbolic.

Knowledge, information, data

2020-02-02T01:10:00.005+00:00

I have been talking to a colleague about philosophy of science. The colleague's opinions are generally materialistic (one may know only what is material), whereas I try to prove (by some examples) that knowledge may be obtained without (or prior to) information, and in the areas which cannot be quantified, yet objectively existing.

A week ago, after many years of pondering, I attempted to resolve a question that had been stuck on my mind since I first read Sonnet 66 by Shakespeare:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

etc.

I saw similar examples in the works of Marlowe as well, and I could not understand how these two most melodic poets would allow unrhymed 'cry' and 'jollity' to form their stanzas. Unless... unless that time those words sounded somehow else?

Could it be that 400 years ago English pronunciation was different? What if 'jollity' did rhyme with 'cry', with 'ai' at the end?

I asked this question a couple of contemporary English poets, and they replied that this was an example of a 'loose rhyme', which is 'allowed in English poetry'.

Still, I could not believe that was the case of the great bards. I emailed an eminent specialist in English, and, to my surprise, he kindly replied that "the -y ending did have a diphthongal pronunciation in the 16th century, so cry and jollity would have rhymed".

Look again at that stanza and read it with 'jollitai'. Isn't it perfect?

I, a non-native English speaker, somehow realised what Shakespeare meant melodically in his sonnets, despite incorrect advice and without any evidence to support my linguistic hypothesis. I knew this without information. Truth was verified by harmony.

Astrologically, that is my Venus in 9th natal house. 9th house denotes learning and faith, and people have different planets in that house (or none). Sometimes it is Moon, sometimes Mars, Mercury or Jupiter - and that defines the type of learning of a person. I am often envious of people with Mercury in 9th: they are prolific intellectuals. But I would not trade my Venus in 9th for anything else, since it opens up with cases like the Shakespearean 'jollity'. Such discoveries are very jolly indeed!

Knowledge is broader than information; data is broader than information; the difference is in the identified structure that produces knowledge. To perceive the universe in a meaningful way, we need to obtain knowledge by all possible means.

Update of 17 September 2020: found this amazing Youtube video that confirms the cry-jollity rhyme.

Lorelei

2018-04-16T15:48:00.001+00:00

Preparing for the cycling marathon Munich-Vienna, I selected the departure day with a nice Moon in Libra as the best possible option (avoiding Moon in Scorpio for the trip). I was still worried about the conjunction Saturn-Mars falling into my 3rd house of short journeys, as that could signify problems on the way.

Despite all my worries about the bike (which flew with pumped tyres but survived all the pressure fluctuations), chain/brakes/wheels managed to stand all the 600km without a single issue.

What did happen, however, is that during the week of cycling, I had, first, 100km of gravel path in the forest, and then in the last two days (fortunately, with only short remaining distance to Vienna) I had all the way extremely strong frontal wind, which made my progress very slow and tiresome.

Good lesson for me regarding the 3rd house signification.

Still, I saw the most beautiful pristine places on Danube, which made all the trouble easy to forget!

If you observe the happy cyclists
With silly grins upon their muzzles,
If all the human sins and vices
Look as remote and pointless puzzles,

If you can stop and call in forest
For legendary Lorelei,
And forest, as a perfect florist,
Sends buds and whispers in reply,

If every minute lasts forever,
And you aren't eager to arrive,
Despite the miles and freezing weather,
You feel again as twenty five, -

Without a guide or a noisy group,
You're cycling on the blue Danube!

154 English sonnets

2017-08-14T16:52:00.002+00:00

New book:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbZ0lqLVFyOEFhZ0U/view?usp=sharing

Why? Most likely, because of the slow transit Jupiter on ascendent in sextile to natal Mercury and in trines to natal Moon and Venus. Very productive year, indeed.

Two new books

2016-06-24T17:38:00.001+00:00

Strangely enough, Saturn may be useful in speech, as it has happened to me in the past few months.

The results are as follows.

Collection in English "Shards":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbRklWUEhwLVJKejg/view?usp=sharing

Collection in Russian "Второе дыхание":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbMGpkTUtCNHJvd0U/view?usp=sharing

New book

2015-06-10T12:47:00.003+00:00

New poetry collection

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8GwyPiFfPfbRXQwV0ZkQ043RVE/view

First e-book appeared in 2006, when Saturn was transiting my natal Mectury. In 2015, with Jupiter transiting there, the second e-book appeared - easier and more swift.

There are a few English poems there, just scroll the pages.

Friendship, genotypes homophily, and astrology

2014-07-16T16:33:00.000+00:00

In the new PNAS paper, the authors report DNA similarities among friends. Apparently, biochemical processes of different friendly organisms have similarities imprinted in their genotypes.

As Cardano wrote in the 16th century, "When several children have the same accidents and fortune, if it be in their childhood, it may be shown by the genitures of their parents; or if in their old age, we may conclude the Nativities of their Parents were so powerful that they assimilate their Nativities between themselves and suit them to the disposition of Children in the Paternal Figure" (aphorism 2.59).

I know numerous examples of puzzling "coincidences" in astrological charts of people forming groups and families. A leader of a group of 10 employees that hires them after short interviews has the same zodiacal sign as three of his subordinates. A family of five has three Scorpios among them, and two children find partners who are born within days from each other. A pregnant woman with Sun in Cancer expects a child under Gemini, but delivery is delayed and delayed, for almost two weeks, until the child is born... with Sun in Cancer.

Modern genetics can explain this by homophilic genotypes. Astrology did this with natal charts, centuries earlier.

We are our brains

2014-06-23T20:52:00.001+00:00

When back in 2006 I wrote my book of commentaries on the Cardano's aphorisms, where I argued that the free will is an illusion, I expected that sooner or later science would prove it at the level of biochemistry. Well, this has happened when Dick Swaab published his book recently.

This is a rather dry summary of the clinical work of the famous neurobiologist speaking about hormones, brain departments and mental disorders. If you are brave to dive into 400 pages of such reading, your reward will be evidence-based fatalism.

Which is very important for any astrologer who has had experience of successful predictions, as well as to any person interested in real philosophy.

In fact, I already got a vivid philosophical discussion in my Russian LiveJournal, and with a colleague physicist at work.

Good reading!

Leos

2014-05-30T16:16:00.000+00:00

I was watching Troy film, and the soundtrack was so recognisable in style that I stopped following the plot and instead started scrolling my sound memories. Was it another film? If film, then which one? In a few seconds, cascades of firing neurons delivered the same key tune, do-re-mi-re, from another film. It was Avatar! Yes, the same dramatic do-re-mi-re, like a signature of a composer.

Obviously, I had no idea about the composers of Troy and Avatar, so I checked the web. You know I am writing this to report the finding, so as you can imagine, both have the same composer, James Horner.

Just like the director of Avatar Cameron, Horner is a Leo. Cameron was born on August 16, Horner on August 14. Then I recalled that the main actor in Avatar was another Leo, Sam Worthington. I went to see the Avatar wiki-page and found yet another Leo, producer Jon Landau. Somehow the Leo got the core-team for his most successful movie made of Leos. Not to mention Cameron's Terminator with Schwarzenegger (Leo).

But this post is not even about Leos, it is about the unquantifiable objectivity. There is truth that one can feel. This truth may not be quantifiable or not derivable by reason. Still, it exists.

Life patterns

2013-02-17T19:39:00.001+00:00

When I was about 7, my mother took me to visit a music teacher in the city centre. The teacher lived on the top floor in a 5-storey building, and while they were having a chat, I decided to explore the surroundings. I was fascinated to see the open way to the loft (health & safety were not an issue then). I climbed there, walked in the loft and found a door to the roof, where I got a perfect city panorama, jolly good.

After a while, I decided to get back before anybody realised my absence. Alas, the roof was huge and I could not find the door that let me get to the roof from the loft, several attempts to find it failed. I was terrified by thoughts about the consequences: not only my mother would be in great distress, which I just could not allow, but also it would be very humiliating if they started searching for me asking for help from public and police. That would be a huge fuss, and I could not allow that!

Suddenly I saw a fire stairs running all the way from the roof to the ground, the very basic piece of metal that was a standard construction that time. However scary it looked (especially the first move, when one has to step on it and turn around to face the stairs while descending), I forced myself to begin descending. I remember very clearly how I was talking to myself convincing that nothing bad would happen if I keep moving carefully and stay focussed at every step.

Obviously, a descending child attracted lots of attention on the ground! I realised that when I heard an increasing noise of a gathering crowd, but I still kept myself focussed on the task in my hands (quite literally in the circumstances).

I finally reached the ground, and got my portion of attention there, they almost cheered me as a little hero... They brought me back to my mother, who was still peacefully chatting not expecting any heroism from her daughter meanwhile.

I am fascinated to see this event as an yet another manifestation of the life patterns that are clearly indicated in my chart. I still like exploring places (Venus in 9th house), in all kind of adventurous (trine Sun-Mars) and strange (sextile Uranus-Sun) ways. I then get into trouble (square Saturn-Sun from 7th house), but manange to find a solution, which may be strong and publicly noticeable (Sun in 10th in Leo) with some blessed help (sextile Jupiter-Sun from 12th house).

It is all the same, nothing has changed...

The results of the solar year

2012-09-09T18:05:00.001+00:00

The past solar year had a very impressive chart, indeed. I had been silent on my blog not only because it was a very busy year, but also to see how the chart would manifest, as a test. Since it was the year of the end of my 6-year work project, I had to find another job, in the current crisis environment, which was not expected to be easy. The job came at the end of the solar year, after multiple applications for highly competitive positions in the British academic environment. Finally I landed on a post in Greater London, where I am heading to now. The long period of uncertainty for months puzzled me, and I discussed this with Anton Grigoryev. He explained that the solar year was not enough to time the event, and it was necessary to wait until the lord of the year changed from Mars to Venus in the late spring. And this worked just as he said. In addition, six papers appeared this year in press, which is quite a harvest.

Still the solar chart was not perfect in other aspects, having Mars and Ketu in the 9th house. In my natal chart, I have Venus in the 9th house, so I am a bit spoilt with respect to travelling, which are not only multiple but also generally smooth and pleasant. Unusually, this year I had to cancel several trips (due to work circumstances and, in the early spring, due to waiting for my new passport). Finally, on a cycling trip on August 4th, similarly to my accident on 02.08.2002, I got a bad trauma from which I am still recovering (fortunately, I am now capable to cycle and swim again, after 4 weeks). I expected that period to be painful and unhealthy, but my worries were related to another health area, as my friends were well aware.

The solar chart was clearly informative, and the mistakes I made were due to my impatience rather than lack of knowledge. What should happen did happen, and worrying in advance did not help to avert that.

Astrological knowledge in some sense is as useless as weather forecast. We are going camping anyway, even if a storm is predicted. What if forecasters are wrong and we may escape the inevitable...

Bianchi

2011-07-31T23:54:00.004+00:00

For this birthday, I chose a new bike. It is a member of 125-year-old family of Edoardo Bianchi (although not his famous celeste colour, as I prefer black horses).

I went to pick it up at the time of the new solar chart, which looks quite promising:

Let's see what the solar year will bring.

Japan earthquake

2011-03-21T13:18:00.001+00:00

In January 2011 I wrote in a public forum of Russian online newspaper gazeta.ru that by June 2011 Japan could experience a very significant earthquake. This online thread can be found here.

I mentioned a possible earthquake of magnitude 7.5 or higher, with wide publicity due to the scale of destruction, and I expected the earthquake to be triggered by the solar eclipse in June.

As we now know, it happened at magnitude 8.9 on 11th of March 2011, three months earlier than I expected.

Human papillomavirus

2011-03-09T13:29:00.003+00:00

1.5 years ago I wrote an astrological post about oral sex as the reason for throat cancer. Last week, a friend sent me a link to a press-release on the same topic. Maura Gillison of the Ohio State University has collected statistics and reviewed bibliography that traces similar medical studies back to 1998.

Several groups independently came to the same conclusion. Some spent years in the lab studying biological samples, others collected and analysed behavioural statistics. Knowledge may be acquired by so many various means.

Brief report

2010-09-27T22:29:00.008+00:00

Just to report briefly on a couple of predictions this summer.

After the full solar eclipse on July 12, which was visible over Southern Pacific, I posted a public comment in the Russian online press 'gazeta.ru'. I expected that during the summer a noticeable earthquake (up to 8 magnitude) may occur in the region, and I expected it in Latin America. On July 15, there was an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 in Chile. Then on 26th July there was an earthquake of 7.6 in Philippines (this one was very deep and did not cause any damage). Finally, on September 3, a very shallow earthquake of magnitude 7 hit New Zealand (it was stronger than the one on Haiti after the winter eclipse, but due to the good construction technologies nobody died).

In January 2010, I had a LiveJournal discussion with an atheistic sceptic whom I told, as an example of astrology in action, that by the autumn of 2010, Italian prime-minister Berlusconi would have problems again, due to the Saturn transit over his natal Sun. Indeed, in August 2010, he got a new press scandal with ladies, and then some political mess.

And something less astrological but still predictive. In December 2009, I had a discussion with another sceptic, a climate one (with some background in paleoclimatology), and I predicted that with increasing global warming the ocean shores would experience more precipitations while central areas would suffer harsh heat waves and droughts. He claimed that global warming would cause humidity in central Russia, etc. The recent events with heat and fires in Russia are well known, as well as the disastrous flood in Pakistan.

A friend of mine asked me once whether it is possible to couple modern geophysics and such a marginal knowledge as astrology. I firmly believe this should happen in future (although not soon, I am afraid). It is important to understand that eclipses cause various hazards on Earth, and it is equally important to study the plate dynamics and climate system to estimate where these hazards are most likely to occur. Both branches of knowledge are invaluable.

Update of November 5. More news about Berlusconi. And just to compare with the results of the recent midterm elections in the US, the post on Obama's inauguration of 2008.

Newton, the Man

2010-06-16T14:35:00.007+00:00

More than three years ago, I wrote a post about insight, where I showed in the charts of Newton and Einstein the role of strong and well-aspected Moon for scientific intuition.

Having read more about Newton recently, especially the lecture by John Keynes, it is very interesting to see how the strong full Moon in Cancer with aspects to Venus and Jupiter in Newton's chart manifested in his research process:

"I believe that Newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret. Then being a supreme mathematical technician he could dress it up, how you will, for purposes of exposition, but it was his intuition which was pre-eminently extraordinary - 'so happy in his conjectures', said De Morgan, 'as to seem to know more than he could possibly have any means of proving'. The proofs, for what they are worth, were, as I have said, dressed up afterwards - they were not the instrument of discovery.

There is the story of how he informed Halley of one of his most fundamental discoveries of planetary motion. 'Yes,' replied Halley, 'but how do you know that? Have you proved it?' Newton was taken aback - 'Why, I've known it for years', he replied. 'If you'll give me a few days, I'll certainly find you a proof of it' - as in due course he did.

Again, there is some evidence that Newton in preparing the Principia was held up almost to the last moment by lack of proof that you could treat a solid sphere as though all its mass was concentrated at the centre, and only hit on the proof a year before publication. But this was a truth which he had known for certain and had always assumed for many years.

Certainly there can be no doubt that the peculiar geometrical form in which the exposition of the Principia is dressed up bears no resemblance at all to the mental processes by which Newton actually arrived at his conclusions.

His experiments were always, I suspect, a means, not of discovery, but always of verifying what he knew already."

"Verifying what he knew already" - that is the strong natal Moon. "Hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks" - that is the natal square of Mercury and Saturn.

Magic

2010-06-15T00:18:00.007+00:00

In the comments to “Pond” post, my opponents were ready to believe that Newton was religious but, in their opinion, there was no evidence that he could be interested in astrology, and his apparent interest in alchemy was nothing but a minor oddity of the genius of the modern science.

Here I present a series of quotes from a remarkable book by Dr Charles Webster “From Paracelsus to Newton. Magic and the making of modern science” (Cambridge University Press, 1982). The author is a historian at the University of Oxford, and the book is the Eddington Memorial Lectures given in 1980.

The main idea of the book is that there is a firm link between occultist Paracelsus (1493-1541) and physicist Newton (1643-1727), because both of them were natural philosophers in their perception of life and science, and although this influence on Newton is generally denied by some modern studies, “it is unfortunate for any proponent of this line that figures of outstanding importance, including Newton himself, turn out to display a lively interest in the occult”.

“The literature of alchemy, hermetism and Paracelsian natural philosophy was […] required reading among the serious scholars of Newton’s generation”, because there existed “the self-evident kinship between hermetic, alchemical and scriptural sources”.

“Somewhat inconveniently for standard interpretations of the Scientific Revolution, the decades following the foundation of the Royal Society witness an outburst of judicial astrology, the continuing flourishing of Paracelsian medicine, undiminishing appeal of alchemy and hermetism, and the full fruition of Cambridge Platonism”.

“The changes in fortune of judicial astrology should not attract attention away from the continuing appeal of such ideas as divine plentitude, metaphysical hierarchies, or the existence of fundamental harmonies and correspondences between celestial and terrestrial world exercised through the intervention of a variety of spiritual agencies and intelligences. This animistic view of nature provided the intellectual underpinning for magic […] Magic retained its appeal as a useful spiritual exercise, and it was also recognised as of value for medicine and relevant to scientific explanation. It is therefore important not to assume that the decline of popular operative magic entailed the wholesale abandonment of the magical worldview”.

F.Manuel, “The religion of Isaac Newton” (Oxford, 1974): “The more Newton’s theological and alchemical, chronological and mythological work is examined as a whole corpus, set by the side of his science, the more apparent it becomes that in his moments of grandeur he saw himself as the last of the interpreters of God’s Will in action, living on the eve of the fulfilment of times”.

As John Keynes beautifully formulated in his work “Newton, the Man”, “He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, a posthumous child bom with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonderchild to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage.”

Update of June 16. Newton's alchemical works are now available online.

And look at this text...

Cinemundane-III

2010-06-02T04:36:00.002+00:00

Last month I had a LiveJournal discussion with a sceptic whom I told (continuing the cinemundane topic) that Jupiter entering Aries would produce lots of action films. I told him that films like “Rambo” or “Die Hard” should appear.

Jupiter enters Aries on 6 June 2010. It will move towards 3rd degree of Aries in the middle of July 2010, then turn to observed retrograde motion and come back to Pisces on 9 September 2010. It later will come to Aries for a proper direct transit only in January 2011 and move through Aries until June 2011.

Which means we could expect fight movies of all kinds during these periods.

This was my theoretical reasoning until yesterday when I came to cinema and watched trailers of films to be released this summer. Most noticeable is, of course, “The Expendables”, whose cast includes

Sylvester Stallone
Bruce Willis
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Dolph Lundgren
Eric Roberts
Mickey Rourke
Jet Li

Ah yes, there will be also releases of “A-Team”, “Karate Kid”, “Knight & Day”. And “The Loser” has just appeared (featuring Zoe Saldana who virtually played in Avatar).

Enjoy the action summer!

Margot Fonteyn

2010-04-19T19:36:00.006+00:00

Cinema is an educating media, not just entertaining, and BBC is especially invaluable in providing biopics of exceptional quality. I just watched a film about Margo Fonteyn, and her miserable family life attracted my “scientific curiosity”.

Even the brief wiki info speaks for itself. “During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Fonteyn had a long relationship with composer Constant Lambert which did not lead to marriage. In 1955, Fonteyn married Dr. Roberto Arias, a Panamanian diplomat to London and playboy. Their marriage was initially a rocky one due to his infidelities. In 1964, a rival Panamanian politician shot Arias, leaving him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life”. The relationship with Nuriev, who was “notoriously impulsive and did not have much patience with rules, limitations and hierarchical order”, ended up in separation. To pay medical bills for her paralised husband, Fontayn should go on tours at quite elderly age, and “during Fonteyn's absence from Panama on tour as a ballerina, a socialite named Anabella Vallarino would move into the house as his shadow wife and move out again before Fonteyn's return.”

Reading all this, I recalled Cardano’s aphorism about affliction of family life. In Lilly’s edition, it is N 2.75: “A prime cause of men leading single live is the combustion of the Moon in their nativities with Saturn, or eminently afflicted by him, so in women if a planet be combust or the Sun in Taurus greatly afflicted.”

My immediate hypothesis was that Fontayn's Sun should be afflicted as Cardano described. And here is her natal chart, with Sun in Taurus in conjunction with detrimented Mars on Algol and in square with detrimented Saturn.

Cardano's "plagiarism"

2010-01-25T02:56:00.001+00:00

There is a known story how Tartaglia (shown above) accused Cardano of “plagiarising” his results on cubic equations that Cardano published in Ars Magna in 1545.

It is easy to find out that the solution was first obtained by Scipione del Ferro, and his pupil Antonio Mario Fiore met Tartaglia in a mathematical disputation in 1535 (those were popular and provided good income for scholars). Tartaglia derived his solution during that disputation and considered it as a great treasure and did not want to disclose when later Cardano asked him. Finally, in March 1539, Tartaglia told Cardano the derivation in an encrypted poem and required that Cardano would never tell this secret anybody.

However, later Cardano and his pupil Ferrari found Ferro’s work in Bologna, kept by Ferro’s pupil and son-in-law Annibale Nave. Furthermore, Ferrari solved quartic equations under Cardano’s supervision. After that, Cardano decided that there was no point in keeping the cubic equations secret, and he published the whole research in Ars Magna, giving proper credit to both del Ferro and Tartaglia.

Tartaglia protested publicly, with great anger and insults. Ferrari decided to protect his teacher and challenged Tartaglia for a public disputation. On 10 August 1548, the disputation was set to discuss 31 problems that contestants posed to each other in previously sent letters, and they met in front of governor of Milan, who had been named judge. Ferrari was declared a winner.

Here is the chart for the disputation set for noon in Milan. The birthdate of Tartaglia is unknown – however, we know that Cardano’s ruler of ascendent is Venus, which is strong in this chart, and his ruler of 7th Mars is here in detriment. Also, transit Saturn forms a square with Cardano’s natal Sun, in retro motion – this means that in the last months his life was not easy due to the unfair accusations.

In fact, modern academics admit that Cardano’s publication of the cubic equation solution, with given credits to both authors (del Ferro and Tartaglia) and his pupil’s results on the quartic equations (also with proper credit), are one of the earliest examples of honest citation and fair research, which became well and widely known for the common benefit – and nowadays this solution is named “cardano formula”. Tartaglia wanted to keep it for himself, probably for a profit in disputations. Who was an honest scientist?

End of matters

2009-12-23T07:04:00.004+00:00

When I attended a lecture of John Frawley about traditional astrology, I learnt a good idea from his example of William Lilly. Frawley said (in my words) that tradition is not about strict following some rigid old rules, but about understanding and keeping the spirit of the art, adapting it to the modern reality. In the case of Lilly, in his time he was testing various “modern” techniques (like unconventional aspects), and they surely led him to the correct result – why was that happening? Because his thinking was rigorous (Saturnine), whatever techniques he used. On the other hand, the strictest “tradionalism” cannot help when there is no understanding.

I recalled this because I was thinking over the End of Matters which is signified by the 4th house. I was taught about receptions and dignities, and these can be applied to the analysis of the End of Matters in its various meanings.

It is about the ending of things that have been done, as well as the end of life - and rulers of the houses can give a hint about the native’s perception of the end of matters. If the ruler of ascendent (the native) is in the sign of the ruler of 4th house (or has dignity on the cusp of 4th house), this signifies that the native is satisfied about the matters of 4th house (as Frawley says, “loves” them).

Given that houses are more or less equal in middle latitudes (i.e. not overstretched with one house dominating others, and 4th-10th axis is more or less perpendicular to 1st-7th axis), if the native has ascendent in some particular sign (see below), he will be “ruling” the End of Matters. It does not mean the End of Matters should be necessarily “good” – but he will be satisfied as the active participant (even if the involved planet is a malefic).

If the ascendent is in Aries, 4th is in Cancer, and Mars, the ruler of Aries, has a triplicity dignity in Cancer. Not bad. For the ascendent in Taurus, 4th house is most probably in Leo, and there are no major dignities for Venus there. One can continue along the zodiac with the same considerations.

This means that the luckiest in the above sense are those who have ascendent in Gemini (Gemini and Virgo are ruled by Mercury), Libra (Saturn rules 4th and exalts in ascendent), Sagittarius (Pisces in 4th are ruled by the same Jupiter), and Capricorn (Mars rules 4th and exalts in ascendent).

But yes, sometimes the houses are not that equal… Or the ruler of ascendent is in the sign of detriment/fall of the ruler of 4th house… Things happen…

Well, the end of the year is a mini-end-of-matters, too, and it is good to see how the traditional approach to such a modern medium as cinema helped me to make a correct prediction back in 2007, when I used Jupiter as the significator of the annual trend in the film art. I wrote in December 2007 that Jupiter entering Aquarius in 2009 would give rise to sci-fi movies. And look at the cinema of 2009… Avatar, Watchmen, 2012, Star Trek, The fourth kind, Gamer, The rise of cobra, Knowing, Moon, 9, Planet 51… Not to mention such properly Aquarian weirdos as Land of the lost, The men who stare at goats, Time traveller's wife, Underworld, and Up…

What an impressive confirmation of the traditional approach in our modern world.

Having had the ascendent in Libra and 4th house in Capricorn (both of Saturn dignity), with reception Venus-Saturn, I am usually satisfied with my Saturnine End of Matters…

What's in pockets of a Virgo

2009-11-13T17:30:00.008+00:00

A colleague of mine, who has been ever very sceptical about astrology, has ascendent in Virgo. Well, if you look at any sun-sign description of Virgo, it will tell you about “great practicality”, “attention to detail”, etc (including criticism, yes). And this is valid not only for those who have Sun in Virgo, but also if other essential points of the horoscope, like ascendent or the Moon, are placed in the sign.

Not surprisingly, it was quite natural for the colleague to always wear a belt-bag with lots of useful bits and pieces. Once I asked him with laugh whether he had manicure scissors there – indeed, he had! Later he added a more spacious waistcoat with a dozen of pockets.

I thought, oh, I know yet another person in a waistcoat with a dozen of pockets, famous journalist Wasserman!

I sent this picture to the colleague, saying that Wasserman should have “something in Virgo”. The colleague was sceptical again, but he helped a lot when he found the birthdata of Wasserman. The guy was born on 09.12.1952 at 3.30am in Odessa. And what is in Virgo in his chart? The Moon!

Mars-Ketu again

2009-10-01T01:21:00.005+00:00

Having been very busy at work, I can listen to the world news only occasionally, and I note extreme events these days (Sumatra earthquake, Samoa tsunami, storms in China and Vietnam) - no surprise as Mars is approaching Ketu again. I wrote several posts about this unpleasant constellation, which happens every 1.5-2 years, but this time its severe effects are amplified by the summer Sun eclipse which promised uneasy time to Asia and Oceania. Look at the map of the eclipse again - it covers exactly this area, including Far East of Russia, which recently suffered a great damage of the large hydroelectrostation.

I do not like to predict doom & gloom, but in the next two weeks, while Mars is moving over Ketu, there will be more of such stuff to observe, unfortunately.

The Pond

2009-09-29T19:36:00.010+00:00

Last week I attended an evening lecture at the Astrological Lodge of London (founded by Alan Leo in 1915). The lecturer was talking about 4th house and ancestors in a natal chart, and was mainly focused on family matters (type of family, internal relationship, etc).

But there is yet another meaning of 4th house, and I was more interested in learning about that – the real estate and immovable property of an individual.

When the lecturer asked people in the audience to give her examples of their natal 4th houses, and at the end, one lady mentioned her cusp of 4th house in Cancer with Jupiter placed there, the lecturer started explaining what kind of attached relationship with family she had, etc.

I was thinking… Jupiter in Cancer on the cusp of 4th house… There should be really huge property there, with some large (Jupiter) sentimental (Cancer) reservoir (watery sign)… And I asked the lady directly in the lecture hall, with apologies to the lecturer for interrupting for a moment, “Do you have some pond in your home estate?”

“My God”, said the lady, “yes, we do have a large pond in our garden…”

And the public turned around to look at me sitting in the last row…

This was an example of very simple and straightforward astrology, but such cases often look as if you take a rabbit from your hat, a kind of weird and suspicious magic (and this is why the Church disliked astrology so much during the history, which inevitably influenced the public opinion) – although astrology is as rigorous as any other branch of human knowledge. The problem is that those who criticise it usually have no idea about its basics and how it works. They just deny and ridicule it. As Newton said to sceptical Edmond Halley, “I have studied it”, – whereas most of the sceptics did not.

Medical astrology

2009-08-13T03:22:00.015+00:00

I am not a doctor, I just have a long record of sicknesses, which were not too disruptive to make me disabled, but painful enough to make me think how my organism works. And when I recently got flu, I was not surprised to later get heavy pain in my backbone and right leg – I immediately understood that the virus entered the nervous system and caused inflammation.

When I told this to my friend, well, the scepticism was understandable. However, the very next morning, I bumped into an article in the most authoritative PNAS journal saying that influenza virus, indeed, can cause neuroinflammation (I was fortunate enough to get that in the leg).

This happened a week ago, but today I got yet another medical case study, because I read a BBC article stating that increasing drinking causes oral cancer.

How comes, I thought… People used to drink much heavier in the past, and the major problem caused by drinking is cirrhosis, which sometimes kills faster than any cancer. Very strange…

The article stated that "Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and the trend we are now seeing is likely to be linked to Britain's continually rising drinking levels."

But I can tell you that this is not the only trend that started in the 1950s. Yet another one was the sexual revolution, and this, unfortunately, may be related to mouth problems, too.

It is well known that some forms of cancer are caused by viruses, in particular, papillomaviruses, which are known to cause cervical cancer. Therefore, my hypothesis was that the increase of the oral cancer in the last decades could be related to particular sexual practices that became more acceptable and widely used.

I asked myself a horary question, whether my hypothesis was correct. The chart was quite positive about this, with Venus on ascendent, exalted Moon lady of ascendent and Jupiter in 9th.

I wanted to add a comment on the cancer causes in the BBC page of the article about drinking, but the discussion was already closed. I then wanted to find the researcher whose words were quoted in the article, Hazel Nunn, and maybe to email her for a discussion, because I strongly felt the claim of the article was not quite correct (and no, I am not a drunkard to feel urge to protect the rights of alcohol).

I found the press-release of the Cancer Research UK, where most of the ideas were the same as BBC published, but there was also a very brief note, which is actually most elucidating:

"It's possible that HPV and diet are also playing a role, and the evidence -
particularly for the role of HPV - is growing."

And if you still do not know, HPV is the abbreviation for papillomaviruses, which do cause cervical cancer and in the last decades seem to migrate to other parts, too.

I am not a doctor, and I cannot publish a PNAS paper on this. No proper medical affiliation, no convincing statistics, no robustness of the result…

This is typical for cholerics: to get the answer faster than to be able to prove it.

Update of August 18th, 2009. I just found a new article in the Lancet journal on alcohol consumption and deaths in Russia (this is where it is really extreme). Although throat cancer is mentioned in the list of death causes, it is very minor compared with accidents and violence, alcohol poisoning, ischaemic heart disease, liver cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cirrhosis, pancreatic disease, and "ill-specified conditions".

Looking at the plots in the paper, one can notice that everywhere in Europe alcohol consumption is decreasing. I am afraid, it has nothing to do with the major cause of the oral cancer (which grows in Europe but still quite low in traditional Russia).

Update of August 26th, 2009. I found that in May 2007, in the New England Journal of Medicine, there was an article by D'Souza et al with main conclusion that "oral HPV infection is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among subjects with or without the established risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use". The press-release of this result is here.

Update of September 9th, 2009. Yet another PNAS article states that the prostate cancer is caused by XMRV virus. I have a suspicion that most cancers are caused by viruses (except abnormal cases like heavy radiation dozes, etc). This is what drives cells mad when they loose their normal functionality. There should be some intrusion, and viral mechanism is a direct way for that.

If one mentions genetic predisposition, how can one know that viruses are not transmitted within a family? People sleep together, eat together, they are an entity; everything is shared and exchanged. Baby gets all mother's viruses, wife gets all husband's viruses. It is inevitable. Later smoking or drinking just triggers and accelerates the processes. Update of August 17, 2010. A very good presentation about retroviridae causing sarcoma, tumors and leukemia.

Update of March 3, 2011. A new press-release about the link between HPV and throat cancer. I am pleased to see my medical intuition been confirmed by the academic science. The only difference is that I came to the conclusion after reading a couple of papers on medical statistics - and these guys spent years in the lab.

Update of January 12, 2021. A new article linking oropharyngeal cancer and oral sex: "Number of oral sex partners remains a strong risk factor for HPV‐OPC; however, timing and intensity of oral sex are novel independent risk factors. These behaviors suggest additional nuances of how and why some individuals develop HPV‐OPC."