Lost Plane

At time of writing this, late yesterday afternoon, no concrete information on the fate of Malaysian airlines Flight MH370, lost since Saturday/Sunday, had emerged. First thoughts now go to relatives and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew, still waiting in dread for what is almost certainly going to be the worst kind of news.

I've been following comments on a professional pilots' forum in the Rumours and News section. At least there, I suspect one has a better chance of commenters who actually know what they are talking about.

Astrology, at a time like this, always seems to me as akin to ambulance chasing, so I'll leave that alone.

Using Occam's Razor (simplest answer is usually the best one), I'd rely on the theory that some electronic/electrical fault in the flight's instruments, including the facility for pilot communication with ground staff, meant that the the pilot decided not to follow the plane's set route, while remaining unable to communicate the fault, decided to turn back and head for some place safe to land. After that, Occam's Razor becomes blunter...Did the original fault spread to other controls, maybe oxygen supply was cut off, so that the plane ditched and crashed either in an area of sea where full search has yet to be carried out, or in a jungle area of land?

Update: Recent news reports, though, indicate Malaysian military is now back-tracking on an earlier statement that it appeared the plane had altered course. All is confusion!

With technology at such an advanced level these days, it seems unlikely that a huge airliner could be allowed to simply disappear. Let us hope that efforts to produce new safeguards for ground communication methods in future airliners will be adopted.

As Martin Robbins wrote, in finishing his piece Cutting Through the Bullshit Surrounding Flight MH370

The irony is that, buried in this avalanche of speculation, there are some really interesting stories that have been largely ignored. How is it, for example, that for all the supposed increases in airline security in the wake of 9/11, checks at airports are so bad that people with stolen passports can apparently travel at will? And why is it that in an era of high speed 4G broadband, when 40-year-old technology can transmit data back from beyond the edge of the solar system, we still have to send ships and divers to retrieve data from a plane, rather than simply transmitting it in real time?

LATER: This article by Vijandren Ramadass has the best theory I've seen so far.

I'm not going to mention astrology again, other than to say that this situation is reflecting the worst side of Neptune.

Drops of Jupiter

Astrologers have always, as far as I know, categorised Jupiter as signifying a benign rather than malignant influence. No doubt its huge size, when compared with sizes of the innermost planets, seemed to signify excess, generosity, exaggeration, and all manner of things springing therefrom, such as travel far & wide, and publication - sending out information to the masses. There's another side to Jupiter though.

Some regularity has been discerned in the distances between planets in our solar system. Bode's Law is a rule devised centuries ago by astronomers to demonstrate the regularity, it's a rough rule but an interesting one. If Mercury is 4 units of distance from the Sun, the Venus is 4+3, the Earth 4+6, Mars 4+12. Then there's a gap - Jupiter is 4+48, and Saturn more roughly 4+96. That huge gap between Mars and Jupiter, breaking a pattern, and leaving a gap where otherwise another planet might have been expected to form, is thought to have remained empty because Jupiter's gravity prevented another planet from forming in that area. Another theory is that several smaller planets were formed and they collided with one another; or that a single planet was formed but was then destroyed by Jupiter's greater gravitational field. Bearing those theories in mind, it's odd that Jupiter hasn't gathered a rather more negative reputation in astrological lore. Astrologers were quick to attribute eccentricity and the unexpected to Uranus because of its eccentric orbit, so why not attribute something like a hint of ruthlessness, eradication, destruction to Jupiter, the juggernaut planet?

Now that she's back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair, hey, hey, hey
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there's a time to change, hey, hey, hey
Since the return from her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey, hey, hey
From Drops of Jupiter by the band Train

We all have at least one drop of Jupiter in us somewhere, for good or ill. Jupiter is ruler of Sagittarius, but traditionally also ruled Pisces before Neptune was recruited for the task. In Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson's book Here and There in Astrology (1961), from which I quoted last Thursday, she embraces the standard interpretations: Jupiter is the planet of abundance, generosity or over-generosity so that he also rules obesity; great respect for formality, protection when in an angular house (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th), and for the bestowal of honors when well aspected to the ruler of the ascendant. He rules philosophy and all forms of higher wisdom including religion, and also philanthropy. As a rule, he represents wealth.

Mrs. Jacobson's notes relate to astrological houses. Houses are a tricky concept - a kind of overlay to the signs, relating to areas of life where the "flavours" of the planets and signs involved are thought most likely to manifest.

Mrs Jacobson listed some potential results when Jupiter is found in particular houses in a natal chart. To establish the exact position of the house cusps (dividing lines) in a natal chart an exact time of birth is needed, exact to the minute, ideally. Few people are lucky enough to possess such exactitude, in which efficiency of hospital staff or relatives' memories play a big part. An additional snag: there are several different systems for calculating house divisions. Astrologers cannot agree which is best, so tend to use the one which works best for them. Bearing these variables and imponderables in mind then, and as a basis for a bit of light "suck-it-and-see" type investigation, here are a few of Mrs Jacobson's notes.

Jupiter in any house increases the number there of whatever that house represents. In 7th house, more than one marriage. In 11th - many friends. In 3rd many blood relatives/neighbours. In 5th many children, and so on.

Jupiter in 10th gives the native great luck in achieving his chosen career.....

Jupiter in or ruling 4th house gives a large home and family, generous father and many gifts from him unless badly afflicted. Some affiliation with a religious organization. Many changes of address - will not continue to live at the birthplace.

Jupiter in or ruling an angular house (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) denotes the wearing of a uniform at some time of life.

Jupiter in 6th - expensive pets, indulgent habits difficult to overcome.

Jupiter in or ruling 9th house or any angle promises long journeys or voyages not necessarily at the native's own expense. Friends are easily made.

Jupiter in aspect with other planets brings out the best the other planets have to offer.

In my own natal chart Jupiter in Pisces is in 9th house.... long journeys or voyages not necessarily at the native's own expense. Half right! Lots of long journeys, including one which led eventually to emigration from my homeland. All, unfortunately, at my own expense though! Something similar regarding travel is signified by my natal Venus in Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter. So if, in my case, house placements aren't exactly accurate due to slight discrepancy in my time of birth, there's back-up!

The Count, Leonora & the Troubadour -- Oh my!

Long ago and far away - the 1950s in England - I was in grammar school, an all-girls establishment it was. I disliked school intensely, not that I didn't enjoy learning - I did; or found it difficult - I didn't. I disliked what I saw as the regimentation of school. One happy memory of those days I've retained is of our school choir's presentation of Giuseppe Verdi's 1853 opera Il Trovatore. The version performed had to have been a shortened English translation of the original, with basic plot kept intact, making the most of all the best melodic arias - good tunes - Il Trovatore has several of these.

Some of us, hearing choir members rehearsing their parts, immediately fell in love with the music, lurking by music room doors and windows became a regular pastime. When time for dress rehearsals on stage in the main hall arrived, we'd riskily be late for, or sneak out of, lessons to watch and listen from the balcony.

Because our school was all-female, male roles in the opera had to be taken by deepest voices available. This didn't faze us, we'd grown up with Christmas pantomime as part of our experience. Genders in pantomime are mixed or matched randomly. My favourite school prefect, Judy was her name, focus of a schoolgirl crush, was to play the part of Manrico.....oh, wait a minute...

In case a passing reader isn't familiar with the story told in Il Travatore (The Troubadour): it is set in 15th century Spain, near Zaragoza, capital of Kingdom of Aragon. The Count di Luna, a nobleman, is in love with Leonora also of a noble background. Leonora, though, is in love with a troubadour, Manrico. There had been some nasty business in the past involving a gypsy woman who had cast a spell upon a baby son of the elder Count di Luna, that baby was brother of the present Count. Further nasty business ensued with each party promising revenge upon the other. These promises have reverberated from the past into present operatic scenarios. Mancico's stepmother, Azucena is involved in the revenge plot, via her mother who had been murdered by the elder Count di Luna. It's all a bit medieval soap-opera-ish, far fetched, tragic and vastly overdone. There's no happy ending. Leonora eventually promises herself to the Count in order to save Manrico's life, but then she takes a fatal dose of poison to save herself from the Count. Melodrama aplenty, but some wonderful meoldies among the more mundane-sounding narrative bits. The story itself was based on a play El trovador (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez.

Some of the most memorable of Verdi's melodies:

Here Ferrando, Captain of the Guard, tells his men the story of the elder Count's two sons.
Many years ago, a gypsy was wrongfully accused of having bewitched the youngest of the di Luna children; the child had fallen sick and for this the gypsy had been burnt alive as a witch, her protests of innocence ignored. Dying, she had commanded her daughter Azucena to avenge her, which she did by abducting the baby. Although the burnt bones of a child were found in the ashes of the pyre, the father refused to believe in his son's death; dying, he commanded his firstborn, the new Count di Luna, to seek Azucena.





Here's a familiar one....The Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles thrills an audience with Verdi's "Anvil Chorus", English name for the Coro di zingari ("Gypsy chorus"), from act 2, scene 1. Spanish Gypsies strike their anvils at dawn and sing the praises of hard work, good wine, and Gypsy women -
See how the clouds melt away
from the face of the sky when the sun shines, its brightness beaming;
just as a widow, discarding her black robes,
shows all her beauty in brilliance gleaming.

So, to work now!
Lift up your hammers!




Also in Act 2 is Azucena's aria Stride la Vampa, the old gypsy woman recounts her undying vow of vengeance on the Count di Luna who murdered her mother years before. She tells of the blazing flames among which her mother was put to death. Part translation:
Evil shines
upon horrible faces
beside the gloomy flame
that rises to the sky!
Screeches the blaze!
The victim arrives
dressed in black,
disheveled, barefoot!
A fierce shout
of death arises;
the echo repeats
from hill to hill!





Di quella pira', Manrico sings at the end of act 3. He is with Leonora in a room adjoining the chapel. They vow their love, and are about to take marriage vows when Manrico's comrade enters to report that Manrico's mother Azucena is to be burned at the stake. Manrico calls together his soldiers and sings of how they will save Azucena from death: "Di quella pira l'orrendo foco tutte le fibre m'arse avvampò!..." ("The horrible blaze of that pyre burns, enflames all of my being!...")

This aria is particularly famous for it's high C's which, for a tenor, is a very difficult note to hold. Malaysian tenor Solomon Chong sings the aria in this video.





Miserere - Manrico has failed to free Azucena and has been imprisoned himself. Leonora attempts to free him by begging Count di Luna for mercy. She offers herself in place of her lover. She promises to give herself to the Count, but secretly swallows poison from her ring in order to die before di Luna can possess her.

Past and Future Echoes

During the week we rented a DVD of the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. The title I recognised, but neither of us could recall ever having seen the film. It was written by, and starred, the then very youthful-looking Ben Affleck and Matt Damon; also with a leading role, Robin Williams.

It's an enjoyable movie. One piece of dialogue, spoken by Matt Damon as Will Hunting, stood out for me as foreshadowing events and atmospheres we, in 2014, recognise even more clearly than cinema-goers of 1997 would have done. First, a wee bit of background: Will Hunting, though not formally trained or highly educated is a natural genius in mathematics, has a photographic memory and extremely sharp powers of perception in all spheres - except in recognising the incongruity of his own situation. He had settled for a janitor's working class existence and mildly wild-boy lifestyle, until his talent was discovered by an MIT professor. In the scene from which this dialogue is taken, Hunting has attended an interview with officials of the NSA (we know them well - or at least, they know us!) arranged for him by the professor. His speech during the interview:

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm workin' at the N.S.A. and somebody puts a code on my desk, somethin' no one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it, maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. And once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hidin'. Fifteen hundred people that I never met, I never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', 'Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area,' 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called 'cause they were out pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie over there takin' shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helpin' my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, maybe they even took the liberty of hirin' an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs. It ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work. He can't afford to drive, so he's walkin' to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks because the schrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorroids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

That dialogue was written around 17 years ago, by a couple of actor friends who, we now know, both have well-defined political views. Echoes of these were likely to be felt in this film. 17 years isn't a long time in the great scheme of things, so I shouldn't have been surprised to hear Will Hunting's speech, which seems, if anything, even more relevant today than in 1997. This isn't one of the better examples of fiction writers' involuntary prescience, a topic I've blogged about in the past, and one which continues to intrigue me.

A couple of sci-fi novels with very scary prescience are J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World and The Burning World, written in 1962 and 1964 respectively. I haven't read them yet, but the saying "read 'em and weep" will follow any thought I might have of acquiring the books.

Here are some other examples, featured as part of of an archived 2006 post of mine, Accidental Prophets, re-aired in 2008:

James Michener seems to have had amazing foresight. Several of his novels featuring a particular country, in depth, were each followed some years later by the same countries coming into prominence on the world stage. In a long interview here: he said

"I think that some of us have a deep seated sensitive antennae about what is going to happen. And somebody the other day, a fine professor, made an introduction of me, which I had not thought about, but which I had thought about a great deal since. At that time, in the world, there were about a half dozen trouble spots: the Near East, the Jewish-Arab relationships, South Africa, revolution in Poland, the emergence of Japan, the absorption in the United States of two outlying territories like Hawaii and Alaska and four or five other things. And he pointed out that I had written full-length books about all these areas before they came into prominence. And I did! There they are. Look at the dates. Now this cannot be because I was exceptionally brilliant. I am not brilliant. I'm something else. I don't know what the word would be, but it isn't brilliant."

Nevil Shute, author of one of my favourites, A Town Like Alice, wrote a couple of novels which later seemed to have been prophetic. No Highway published in 1948 dealt with what might happen due to metal fatigue in aircraft. His ideas came close to fact with the Comet disasters of the 1950s. Another novel, What Happened to the Corbetts also published as Ordeal was written just before the start of WorldWar2. It tells how badly aerial bombing affected a town similar to Southampton, in the south of England, and how the bombing of civilians became a major part of the war. British people of a certain age will have no trouble recognising this as fact! On the Beach, a story of the world ending as a result of the explosion of atomic bombs, thankfully has not yet proved prophetic. It could still be "pending" however, should people forget the warning bells it rang! Shute also touched on a slightly supernatural theme in a novel called Round the Bend in which an aircraft mechanic becomes the mystical leader of a religious movement.

Seeing some correspondence between Michener and Shute, I searched around for other instances of novels which, without purporting to be science fiction, portray events which later came to pass in real life.

American author Morgan Robertson produced an early example in his story Futility. He told of a ship called Titan which sank in a way eerily similar to The Titanic, 14 years later. When this book was written there were no ships of such enormous size being built. Robertson also appeared to be crystal-gazing when he later(1914) wrote a book called Beyond the Spectrum. In this book, he described a war in the future, fought using aircraft which dropped "sun bombs" on their targets. These were powerful enough for a single bomb to destroy a city. When this book was written, aeroplanes were small, flimsy, and unreliable machines capable of carrying one person. Nuclear weapons were still unimagined. Robertson's war began in the month of December, as did the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which brought the USA into WW2.

Michener was born 1907, Shute 1899 and Robertson 1861.

There are common sense explanations for the authors' apparent ability to see into the future, these men were not deliberately trying to predict events, as far as we know.

Michener didn't foresee actual events, but was drawn or inspired to write about countries which later came to prominence for one reason or another. He was widely travelled, highly intelligent, politically minded and had lived in all the countries he wrote about. Common sense would say that he was "putting two and two together", or using intuition.

Shute was a skilled aeronautical engineer as well as novelist. He had technical knowledge more than sufficient to foresee possible outcomes where the area of his expertise was involved. "An accident waiting to happen", in the case of metal fatigue, and some extrapolation of known facts in the case of aerial warfare ?

Robertson was the son of a ship's captain and spent some time as a cabin boy himself, so the sea was "in his blood", he had no doubt heard some tall tales from the old salts he must have encountered. These, with a little embroidery, might have helped him to invent his ship Titan. His "Beyond the Spectrum" published in 1914 is harder to explain.

Those are explanations for skeptics. Someone more open-minded, and sensitive to peculiar coincidences like these, might see a different explanation. Novelists and short story writers continually tap into vast resources of imagination. For hours at a time, their minds are "elsewhere", concentrating outside of the mundane. Isn't this akin to meditation? Could it be that as they concentrate so intently in realms of the imaginary, coloured with knowledge stored in their memory banks, they somehow inadvertently seep through a time barrier or into another dimension?

With oblique reference to the above, I read this week that plans are afoot to make a movie version of Harlan Ellison's 1965 award-winning short science fiction story, 'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman. This should be interesting!

Harlan Ellison's story is set in a dystopian future where strict adherence to time regulation rules everything, including life and death. It's basically a satirical diatribe on social regimentation. In the story one Everett C. Marm, disguised as Harlequin rebels, albeit a whimsical rebellion, against the time regulations and the Master Timekeeper known as Ticktockman.

“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!”

“And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.”

Let us hope that author Harlan Ellison had not tapped in to any future truth!

Arty Farty Friday ~ Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian, Dutch painter (1872-1944), lived at various times in Holland, France, England and the USA. Most people will recognise his work, even if they forget his name - or muddle it with other artists of his era with surnames beginning with "M" - I do that a lot (Monet, Manet, Matisse, Modigliani....and so on).

Mondrian's early works are nothing like those by which he is still remembered in the 21st century.

 Red Tree, 1909

 Farm near Duivendrecht, c 1916

He proved himself to be a talented painter and sketcher in both realistic and impressionistic modes, then he evolved, gradually, via cubism to absolute abstraction, eventually to what he called "neo-plasticism". I've never been a fan of his famous style, have declared, on occasion, that anyone with a ruler and some white, black and primary colour paints could do a comparable job. At that time I hadn't investigated the artist's intention. Having now done so I've warmed to him slightly, but not a lot.

 Tableau 1, 1921

 Trafalgar Square 1939-43

 Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red  1937-42

It appears that Piet Mondrian was greatly influenced by the "teachings" of Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists, whose heyday coincided more or less with his. What was the significance of those highly recognisable grid paintings then?

From a very good article by Dr. Jeanne S. M. Willette at Art History Unstuffed

In Mondrian’s mature canonical style, the grids became irregular so that the colored units had to be formally balanced. The black lines of the grid became more assertive and the shapes are not equal, nor are the colors evenly distributed, nor are they of equal size. However, Mondrian learned how to balance the elements, turning asymmetry into symmetry, harmony and balance. The red, yellow and blue, the primary colors signified the unchanging and absolute elements of the universe; the vertical and horizontal, the eternal and unchanging laws of the absolute. Eventually the lines met the edges, implying a larger and wider field stretching beyond the painting itself. Mondrian carefully considered the demarcation of his surfaces and brought the frame forward, rather than allowing the canvas to be set into a surround, giving the impression of depth.

In an essay, he spoke of an "absolute harmony of straight lines and pure colors underlying the visible world."

And from David Sylvester, in his book "About Modern Art: Critical Essays, 1948-1997"

"Intense involvement with living things is involvement with death. If you follow nature, wrote Mondrian in 1920, you have to accept 'whatever is capricious and twisted in nature'. If the capricious is beautiful, it is also tragic: 'If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic to any real degree in your art. It is certainly true that naturalistic painting makes us feel a harmony which is beyond the tragic, but it does not express this in a clear and definite way, since it is not confined to expressing relations of equilibrium. Let us recognise the fact once and for all: the natural appearance, natural form, natural colour, natural rhythm, natural relations most often express the tragic . . . We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things.'.......................

"Mondrian wanted the infinite, and shape is finite. A straight line is infinitely extendable, and the open-ended space between two parallel straight lines is infinitely extendable. A Mondrian abstract is the most compact imaginable pictorial harmony, the most self-sufficient of painted surfaces (besides being as intimate as a Dutch interior). At the same time it stretches far beyond its borders so that it seems a fragment of a larger cosmos or so that, getting a kind of feedback from the space which it rules beyond its boundaries, it acquires a second, illusory, scale by which the distances between points on the canvas seem measurable in miles...............

In 1940 Mondrian moved to New York, presumably to avoid German invasions in Europe. New York was a whole new world for his investigation. He must have loved the grid layout of the streets there, but more surprisingly he was enchanted by the music of the city - boogie-woogie, jazz, and jazz dance.

Broadway Boogie Woogie 1942-43.

(From Havard University Gazette)Mondrian first heard boogie-woogie pianists Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons when he came to New York, and became an instant enthusiast, using the term in a number of later painting titles. He denied that his paintings were visual equivalents of the music, and yet one can see a correspondence between the rolling bass figures of this propulsive style and Mondrian's black grids dancing with spots of color.

 Piet Mondrian by André Kertész

A raucous blues form originating in roadhouses and rent parties, boogie-woogie would not seem to be the kind of music a worshiper of ideal forms would be attracted to. Nor does Mondrian, a severe, angular figure wearing round, thick glasses and a three-piece suit (photos of the artist can be seen in the exhibition), conform to most people's idea of a jazz fan. But in actuality, Mondrian maintained an intense interest in American jazz throughout most of his life. According to Cooper, he even took dancing lessons and kept up with all the latest steps.

Mondrian never married, appeared to be wedded to his art. He had a close colleague and friend in American artist Harry Holtzman, who became his sole heir and executor to his estate.

ASTROLOGY

Wouldn't it be fun if his chart looked like one of those later paintings of his? In a way it does, there are angles (squares) and straight lines(oppositions), but he certainly would not approve of the trines (triangles), he had no time at all for diagonal lines!

What I noticed first about Mondrian's natal chart were three "two-fers": conjunctions - Sun/Mercury in Pisces, Moon/Venus in Aquarius, and Jupiter/Uranus in Cancer. I have to say that I don't get much of a sensitive Cancerian feel to Mondrian, but Jupiter linked to Uranus, ruler of Aquarius (where Venus is found in his chart), makes the placements easier to understand. His natal Sun was in Pisces; neither does he seem terribly Piscean, from what we know of him. I see his Moon in Aquarius, for sure, as driving factor in his art. He brought something quite unique and new to the art world... but wait, his ideas were driven by Theosophy, which is I think, Neptunian in nature. Mondrian's Pisces Sun/Mercury is ruled by Neptune....I get it!

Mondrian looked like his Saturn in Capricorn in the photographs above didn't he? One could easily have mistaken him for a bank manager, accountant or civil servant!

Wishful Thinking... Astrologically

I have a book by astrologer Ivy M. Goldstein-Jacobson, Here and There in Astrology,    first published in 1961. It contains all manner of astrological tid-bits which provide food for thought. In the Introduction the author says that the first part of the book is "designed to give the student of astrology a new, different and much simpler approach to his work with natal charts...."

How much validity to attach to the method described below under the heading What You Want and Whether You Get It in Part I of the book, is up to the individual. While I understand the thinking behind it, I do feel a tad uncomfortable with it. At times astrology can be made to seem something akin to a board game. Best way to assess this particular proposal of Ms Goldstein-Jacobson is the old "suck it and see" method!

Here's an excerpt from What you want and whether you get it, with some exact quotes mixed with shortened versions, or clarifications, in my own words.

Mrs Jacobson explains, with regard to hopes and wishes, it is to the 11th house in a natal chart we should first look, this denotes what is wanted. Whether it is achieved is shown by the planet ruling the sign on the cusp of the 11th house. "Be sure to note the distinction we make here" said Mrs. Jacobson. An intercepted sign within the 11th house will denote a secondary, less important desire, often held in abeyance due to circumstances over which the native has little control. It might also denote a future desire.

Mrs Jacobson goes on to describe in which direction Fire, Air, Water or Earth signs on the cusp of 11th house will be likely to direct hopes and wishes.

Briefly: Fire basically wishes for spiritual things or whatever is creative or touches the heart and soul. (Fire signs = Aries, Leo, Sagittarius)

Earth, practical and material things, roots, future security.
(Earth signs = Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn)

Air, whatever is scientific, intellectual, these signs are diffuse having "only a light hold on what they want when they get it.....they desire to spread their knowledge, they are teachers". (Air signs = Gemini, Libra, Aquarius)

Water sign on the cusp of the 11th - these need to satisfy their extra sensory perception through deep understanding of the mystical, whatever appeals to the imagination and emotions. (Water signs = Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces).

An intercepted sign adds its element characteristics. (Intercepted signs occur when a whole sign is contained within a house, that sign isn't found on any house cusp. This only happens in unequal house systems - i.e. all systems other than the equal house system).
Mrs Jacobson then tells us that the sign on the 11th cusp and that of any intercepted sign may be ruled by more than one planet. We must look to the houses where these are placed to find out in which department of life the hopes and wishes are being sought...."the more houses involved, the more diversified the desires".

The next thing to note is the relationship of such houses to the 11th house itself, square (90 degrees), trine (120*), opposite (180*), etc. this will show whether the 11th cusp ruler will "find conditions easy to handle or not, in gaining his hopes".

5th opposes 11th - your circumstances involve opposition and non-cooperation, success is difficult. An opposition represents "anything that is as far from you at birth as possible, such as marriage for example - you have to grow up before you can attain it. On the other hand an opposition is like a full moon lighting whatever is before you.....you are aware what you have to face in life. You always have to break a bond to overcome opposition.....dearest wish often comes true late in life".

4th and 6th are quincunx the 11th Circumstances have to undergo radical reorganisation before whishes can be attained. Quincunx can indicate that you may need to pay another's debts, or put out money for support, etc. ("The quincunx is basically the distance from the ascendant to the 6th and from 8th to ascendant"). Discrimination needed in deciding what it is you want the most.

3rd and 7th are trine the 11th - Happy circumstances make it easy to attain one's wishes through family or strangers, or by moving home or country ("because the original measurement of the trine falls between ascendant and 5th and 9th houses"). This is the luckiest aspect of all.

2nd and 8th are square the 11th, putting obstacles in your way due frequently to financial circumstances. ("Squares make you go to extremes of effort since they are basically the distance between ascendant and 4th or 10th.") Obstacles may be due to family/parental factors, they being unable to provide what you need, especially in childhood.

1st and 9th sextile 11th. "Opportunities like the postman will always knock twice affording excellent chances of success through own effort or that of people you talk to, since the sextile is basically the distance from ascendant to 3rd and from 11th itself."

10th and 12th are semi-sextile to the 11th. Circumstances favour gaining some hopes and wishes, but not as easily as via the sextile. ("Semi-sextile is basically the distance between ascendant and 2nd or 12th"). You may find you have only half a chance due to past mistakes.

The 11th may be said to conjunct itself, and when the ruler of the 11th is there it means that circumstances are with you: your hopes and wishes are within easy grasp. Friends are there when needed.

There are other details, covering mutual reception, retrograde and stationary planets: interpretations for these are fairly easy to guess. 

Using the Placidus house system,I have Aries on the 11th cusp natally, with Taurus intercepted in 11th house. Mars, ruler of Aries lies in 5th (opposing), Venus ruler of Taurus lies in 6th(quincunx). This method gives a reasonably accurate result, for me.

OSCARS

In case anyone's interested, a few thoughts about this year's Oscars awards ceremony televised on Sunday evening. We're longtime film fans, totally non-sporty, so such ceremonies have become our alternative to Superbowl and suchlike. We sat through the three and a half hours, muting the TV during ads, most of which were for Cadillacs which hardly anyone watching at home would be able to afford.

Ellen DeGeneres hosted the event in her casual, straight-faced mildly sarky style, which went down fairly well. Ellen's idea to order pizza, bringin' the assembled multi-millionaires down to earth, fell kind of flat. It was an iffy thing to try really with everyone and their dogs on strict diets. I bet there were numerous pizza slices found under seats when the janitors did their thing later.

The only sour note, I felt, was Ellen's mean and ageist remark, and attitude - meant to be a joke - towards the 83 year old actress June Squibb who was nominated for her supporting role in Nebraska. If Ellen had done something similarly stereotypically non-funny to an African American or gay person she'd have been booed off the stage...but she assumes she's safe enough joking about age. I've noticed she's being criticised for a "joking" remark she made to Liza Minnelli, but about the "joke" at June Squibb's expense, not so much.

We haven't yet seen the movie which took the Best Picture award Twelve Years a Slave. One of the film's cast, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The film is still in the top price range at our video rental store, so we shall wait a while until it slides over to the cheaper shelves. We haven't seen either Nebraska or Dallas Buyer's Club yet for the same reason. The latter movie's two leads won best supporting actor and best actor: Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey respectively. Jared Leto's speech was one of the best, I thought. He gave a shout out to those under stress in Ukraine and Venezuela, the only one who did, far as I recall. His colleague Matt McConaughey's speech was a rambling mess, but he meant well.

Amazingly this year, we had actually seen some of the nominated movies. We saw Gravity (wrote a paragraph about it here). It deserved the seven awards it received, including best visual effects, cinematography and original score. I was surprised not to see George Clooney in the audience, or presenting awards. His name wasn't mentioned in connection with Gravity until near the end of the ceremony when it was rapidly reeled off among a list of thank yous.

We saw Blue Jasmine (wrote about it here), and thank goodness the recent hoo-haa about Woody Allen, the film's director, did not impinge upon Cate Blanchett's being awarded the Best Actress Oscar for her stunning performance in the film. She did not shy away from thanking Woody Allen either, that was good to see.

We saw August: Osage County, some weeks ago. The film itself didn't seem like Oscar material to us, but leading characters received nominations: Julia Roberts for best supporting actress and Meryl Streep for best actress. The two ladies did give fine performances.

Just a sidelight - I noticed quite a few English accents from those collecting awards. That's nice, I thought, giving 'em a run for their money at their own game. (winks).

The Other "F" Word

I'm no expert on such matters (or on any matters), but I don't equate fascism with totalitarianism. Maybe I'm mistaken. I see fascism as totalitarianism's younger brother, who comes up behind, with potential to overtake his sibling, given time. I have to thank Cannonfire, once again, for a link last wekend to this article by Patrick Walker (no, not the late Patrick Walker, astrologer!) It's a longish essay on fascism and totalitarianism, and comes to the conclusion that: "the political dysfunction Americans now face is really a form of fascism".


A few snips from Patrick Walker's essay at OpEd News.com:

I do not regard fascism and totalitarianism as synonyms. The proper way to view matters is that a very pernicious form of fascism (and of course, the word fascism implies it's pernicious) can exist without totalitarian control; if totalitarianism implies near-total government control over people's lives, it strikes me that government can do a particular sort of grievous harm to its subject population--harm that fully merits the term fascism-- while still falling short of totalitarian dominance.

The alarming part is that fascism can fool a nation's people and have them deeply in its grip before they've even noticed--largely because they've confused fascism with totalitarianism, and falsely conclude they're fascism-free because daily life isn't (yet) totally under their government's thumb. The hopeful part is that because fascism can exist for some time without totalitarianism, people can (if sufficiently awakened) still retain enough freedom to fight back and reverse their nation's fascist course. I think ALL these characteristics--except, scarily, the sufficient awakening--exist in today's United States.

So a key part of modernity is that the vast masses of humanity believe (at some level) in democracy, so even the most tyrannical governments must somehow fake it. So fascism is essentially a cancer on democracy, and would not exist without its modern democratic host. Which brings us to the quintessentially modern means by which the fascist spreads: mass propaganda, as enabled by modern communications media.

It's in its absolutely central reliance on mass propaganda that fascism proves its incestuously close relationship with democracy, for a weakened democratic body is the only kind fascism's cancer can grow in. (Not that there aren't truly awful regimes that were never in any sense democratic; my point is that they're simply not fascist.)

Our long brainwashing by electronic media advertising has in many ways been our grade school for graduation to fascism, and it's especially sobering to realize that Goebbels learned much of his satanic bag of tricks from American advertisers.

Quite simply, it's too potentially dangerous--and too disreputably messy--to control large modern populations (especially ones that believe in democracy) by force, so mind control through mass propaganda (and its Siamese twin, censorship) has become the preferred modern means of tyranny.

So, based on my careful analysis, U.S. citizens presently live under a dangerous form of fascism, but not yet under totalitarianism. Let's use the precious freedoms still remaining to us to assure we don't get there, that our leaders don't continue to overreach. We must, for example, drastically cut back on government spying, and we must protect the precious right of all citizens to vote. But for now, we must above all stop Obama from approving the XL pipeline, for its construction will require a savage crackdown on civil disobedience from which our Constitutional freedoms may never recover.

It's a very good essay, well worth a read in full. Exactly what those individuals who agree with Mr Walker's view can do isn't set out though. It sounds, kind of, do-able to "assure that... our leaders don't continue to overreach. We must, for example, drastically cut back on government spying, and we must protect the precious right of all citizens to vote. But for now, we must above all stop Obama from approving the XL pipeline...."

I hope that there will be an essay to follow, with information on exactly how these things are still within reach of "we", the ordinary people in the USA.

We've been over similar ground before on this blog, last June: -
New Fashion Fascism. I guess it does no harm to keep it at the forefront of our minds.

Music Monday ~ We Need Star-Cult Part 2!

In the penultimate chapter of "The Night Sky" - The Science and Anthropology of the Stars and Planets by Dr. Richard Grossinger, the author wanders into the realm of pop culture, the chapter's title: The Pop Star Cult of the Fifties and Sixties. What he describes was also the start of a culture of youth which, before that point in history hadn't existed. He writes about growing up with the legacy of World War 2 and the atom bomb. Being a War Baby myself I understand where he's coming from. He describes the development of what he calls a star-cult.

Some excerpts:

"The sirens warned us of another holocaust for which the atom bomb was the emblem. For all the times they accidentally went off, we still survived into the sixties..........................the nuclear war we seemed to have evaded, against the odds, was happening to us anyway, as radiation leaked into the rivers and the air, and Joan Baez sang "What have they done to the rain?"

This was the dark Plutonian half of the era, when a star cult began...... ......There was a star-cult because we needed a star-cult, and a star- cult alone would do. We were born into a tremendous heat and a prophecy. We knew that we were going to be something different because the world had become absurd. The passion we felt went beyond anything we could feel the passion for, so we transformed each other into angels and messengers, and we listened to the inter-stellar debris.........................

When the heavens cried out for their "stars above" and tens of thousands of jukeboxes and radios wailed variants of the word "love", didn't we understand that our whole civilization was praying for the return of the gods, the return of those powers within us that had brought us into being?

Yes, it is love which brings us here and love which gives us life.

Yes, we stand, every man and every woman, within the stars. Who else has survived the incredible galactic and atomic violence to be here for a day of song?

Bobby Darin called his "Dream Lover" from a faraway world; a zodiac figure, like Paul Anka's Venus...Frankie Laine "gambled for love in the moonlight", Elvis went to Heartbreak Hotel, as remote as the house of Cepheus. There he dreamed of "a warmer sun" in a world long past his own brief life. The melodies and the dances were otherworldly and exotic......

The baseball cards changed to tarot cards, and they fell like meteors across an older sky. "Do you believe in magic?" the Lovin' Spoonful asked at a cusp of changing times. The Beatles visited India, and they returned with a cosmic instrument. Jimi Hendrix arrived with his songs of the outer Solar System.....other visionaries flocked to the deserts to watch the ancient ceremonies of the Native Americans...........So the new tribes gathered at Woodstock. It was no costume party. The stars were coming to claim their own, as they had with the Sufis and Cherokees for millennia. If the magic was in the music, the music was in us.

When the astral prophecy of the sixties made it to Broadway with the nude dancers of Hair, the message to the stars could not have been clearer: "You twinkle above us, we twinkle below" and in 1980, in a movie called Fame, thirty years after the beginning of the cult, the chorus sang "Someday we'll all be stars". The magicians and astral priests promised likewise...........By the late sixties the star music had disintegrated into acid rock, atomic residue, and things were to get crazier....."

I wonder, was it Neptune's transit through in Scorpio, from the mid-1950s on, that kick-started the star-cult Dr.Grossinger describes? Since that time Neptune has traversed Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius, during those times descendants of the original star-cultists have carried on the tradition in broadly the same way. Now, Neptune is transiting the first Water sign since Scorpio: dreamy Pisces. This transit could bring a far more fertile decade music-wise.

Will some new version of star-cult emerge? One fact that could play into it, loosening up the creaky, cranky muscles of the music scene and bringing in some sweeter, gentler dreaminess: legalisation of marijuana in some states. Colorado has done it, with maybe other states following, in time. Nuclear weapons still threaten, the environment is in even greater, darker danger now. I say we do need another star-cult - star-cult part 2!

UKRAINE

I've been wanting to do a post about the situation in Ukraine, have read around the net on the history behind it, found myself wallowing in too much detail - dazed and confused. At least I found out about Tatars/Tartars and the Golden Horde!

One view I always come back to, after delving into the background of such conflicts, is that it's always a small minority of leaders and followers involved, on both sides. Ordinary people carry on their daily lives, work, love, look after their families as best they can. The majority in Ukraine, Crimea, Russia are quite like you and me (whoever you are, unless you are Obama, Putin, a member of armed forces or of a political hierarchy or oligarchy.)

Among the muddled mess in my brain about causes and outcomes, the one thought I earnestly cling to is the hope that ordinary people in affected areas will not have to suffer more pain, more deaths and more destruction, at whatever hands.

FOGGY FRAGMENTS

Staying once more with Neptune, and one of its alleged characteristics: fog. Fog comes in atmospheric, mental and ethereal varieties.

We used to experience frequent dense atmospheric fogs in the part of England where I lived for many years. Being caught in a really dense fog, known in Britain as "a pea souper", was more unnerving and disorienting than I had ever realised. My mother and I were out shopping one afternoon trolling around some department store for an hour or so. When we'd entered the store it had been an average kind of coolish, dampish, Septemberish afternoon; when we stepped out later everything was shrouded in a thick white, choking fog. We gasped, laughed and began to walk a few yards, then found we had no idea how far we'd walked or where to turn or where to cross the road - which would have been a stupid thing to do anyway. The fog was so thick you couldn't even see the edge of the footpath(sidewalk) or, in fact, the footpath under your own feet. We couldn't see any other people around at all, or sense the way back to the same store, so quickly disorientated had we become. The experience brought on a dizzying feeling unlike anything I've known since. We held hands, felt our way along buildings until a dim glow from another store filtered through the fog. We waited inside until the worst of the fog had lifted.

On another occasion I was with my parents in their car travelling the 20 or so miles home from a visit to another city. The weather had been fine and dry as we set off, around 5pm. Halfway home a thick fog descended. In those days there were not nearly as many cars and lorries on the roads, which was fortunate for us, but headlights weren't nearly as efficient as they are today. We parked for a while, the fog persisted, so my mother opted to walk in front of the car with (optimistically) a lighter, and lighted cigarette, in the hope that any oncoming traffic would see us, also in the fervent hope that she wouldn't disappear into the fog, only to be knocked down by Dad! We proceeded at a very, very slow pace almost to the outskirts of our hometown where we promptly collapsed into fits of nervous giggles.


Fog
By Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

 Milan, Italian city known in the past for its for thick winter fog

 Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

“One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life."
"The Fog Horn blew.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Fog Horn

More Foggy Fragments....

Foggy Day in London Town; Foggy Foggy Dew; Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow. (Bob Dylan, Mr Tambourine Man)


the fog =

le brouillard (French)

la nebbia (Italian)

la niebla (Spanish)

der nebel (German)


The fog of war: confusion caused by the chaos of war or battle, fog of war can cloud judgment.

Sometimes we don't have "the foggiest idea."

Pettifogger = a lawyer who handles petty cases, esp. one who uses unethical methods in conducting trumped-up cases, a trickster, cheater.


Types of Fog
1. Radiation Fog - During a clear night, radiational cooling causes the air temperature at the surface to reach the dew point. At that point, condensation occurs, and fog forms.

2. Advection Fog - When warm, moist air moves horizontally across a cold surface, the air is cooled to the dew point, and fog forms because of it.

3. Slope Fog - When warm, moist air rises up a slope, it eventually reaches the Lifting Condensation Level (LCL), which is where the air temp equals the dew point, etc.

4. Precipitation Fog - After plenty of rainfall, enough of it evaporates to saturate the air, and that results in fog formation.

5. Steam Fog - Cool air present above warm water receives enough water vapor from evaporation to form fog.
(From HERE).

Arty Farty Friday: James Ensor - Neptune in Pisces Ascending

James Ensor didn't have natal Sun in Pisces, but he did have Neptune, modern ruler of Pisces, slap-bang on his ascendant. He was born on 13 April 1860 at 4:30 am in Ostend, Belgium (data from Astrodatabank AA rating = very reliable). Chart and notes on the astrology follow at the end of this post.

A band called They Might be Giants once wrote a song about this artist:





Meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Dig him up and shake his hand
Appreciate the man

Before there were junk stores
Before there was junk
He lived with his mother and the torments of Christ
The world was transformed
A crowd gathered round
Pressed against his window so they could be the first

To meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Raise a glass and sit and stare
Understand the man

He lost all his friends
He didn't need his friends
He lived with his mother and repeated himself
The world has forgotten
The world moved along
The crowd at his window went back to their homes

Meet James Ensor
Meet James Ensor
Belgium's famous painter
Dig him up and shake his hand
Appreciate the man.


I enjoyed a 2009 piece on this artist by Elatia Harris at 3 Quarks Daily - James Ensor: Keepin' It Surreal. Or there's Pariah to Paragon - James Ensor and the Carnivalesque by Bryce Dwyer at University of Tampa's Journal of Art History. Or Wikipedia's page on the artist.

In a nutshell, for the greater part of his life Ensor was not an artist embraced by the elite of late 19th century art world. He was an outsider, made little attempt to change this, remained in the city of his birth, living and working in a studio in the home of his parents. He did come to be accepted later in life, but from what I've read, such public acceptance seemed to mark a decrease in, or complete loss of, the sharp insights in that strange style which eventually brought him recognition. Perhaps he had thrived on, and revelled in simply being an outsider, but once his work became widely accepted something within him retreated.

His earliest work was fairly mainline, fairly unremarkable, then his paintings seemed to veer into a kind of raging madness, and his style stayed somewhere out there where the buses didn't run. His paintings are filled with masks and skeletons, or unpleasant images. I understand these were depressing commentaries on the human condition as he saw it from the vantage point of his hometown, Ostend, a city on the North Sea coast of Belgium. Belgian history, and maybe his own mortality must have conjured such morbid visions. Human bones were regularly uncovered in Ostend, residue of the carnage there during seventeenth-century warfare; Ensor possibly retained memories of their exhumation. His 1888 etching (below) of himself as a skeleton, reclining in slippers bears the title My Portrait in 1960.

A few more examples of his work.........

 Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889

 The Frightful Musicians

Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring

Ensor seemed to enjoy painting self portraits -19th century version of a "selfie" I suppose - three of these follow:

 Self Portrait with Flowered Hat

 Detail from Self Portrait with Masks

 Ensor at the Harmonium

With regard to his art style, Neptune in Pisces on the ascendant and Uranus conjunct Venus in Gemini is really all there is to say!

His dream or nightmare-like scenes, masks, illusions (Pisces Neptune), off-the-wall subject matter (Uranus) in his art (Venus) - the most unpleasant of which I have not posted. For example there's a painting Doctrinal Nourishment [Alimentation Doctrinaire], a provocative send-up of authoritarian hubris that lampoons the Belgian ruling classes as bloated, self-satisfied tyrants, sitting, bare-bottomed, on a high wall and emptying their bowels into the awaiting mouths of a ravenous crowd. Created in 1889, this print critiqued the unstable socio-political climate aggravated and perpetuated by the oppressive policies of King Leopold II. (See HERE)

Ensor's apparent need to stay on the outside of the art world's bubble, to be different, to appear eccentric clearly relates to Uranus conjunct Venus.

“Drenched in British purples, I have offered up my tones: pigeon breast, hind belly, balky mule lung, monkey bottom pink, lapis lazuli and malachite, excited nymph thigh, panther pee-pee, high-smelling hen hair, hedgehog in aspic, barrel-maker's brothel, revered rose, monkeybush, turkey-like white, sly violet, page's slipper, immaculate nun spring, unspeakable red, Ensor azure, affected yellow, mummy skull, rock-hard gray, brunt celadon, shop soiled smoke ring.”
~ James Ensor, "James Ensor"

Another Side of Neptune in Pisces

Four individuals listed below were born between 1849 and 1861 (when Neptune was last transiting Pisces) with Neptune close to their ascendant degree. It's not hard to spot similarities in their chosen life paths is it?

My software wasn't too helpful with French place names, I had to find the nearest town to some birth places, but charts as shown will be accurate enough for the purpose of discovering prominent Neptune in Pisces. Data came from either astro.com or astrotheme.

Anthelme Nizier Philippe, also known as "Maître Philippe" or "Maître Philippe de Lyon" born on April 25, 1849 in Le Rubathier, Loisieux, Savoy, France, son of a peasant couple. He gained a reputation as a healer by the age of thirteen. He married Jeanne Julie Landar (1859–1939)in 1877, had a daughter, Jeanne Marie Victoire born on 11 November 1878. She died on 29 August 1904 aged 25. He refused to heal her, saying that it was Heaven's wish that she should go on ahead, and predicted the precise course of her illness and death. "This death," he said, "has for me been a living crucifixion."

He soon gained a reputation as a miracle worker amongst Paris occultists. Having been harassed for practicing medicine without a license, he went to St Petersburg where he was awarded his Doctor's Diploma in recognition of extraordinary feats of remote healing conducted in St Petersburg.

Charles Lancelin, born January 4, 1852 in Dreux, died in 1941, was a French physician and occultist who was an early experimenter in the field of astral projection, also known as out-ofthe-body travel. He published a number of important books in the active period of French interest in occultism that preceded World War II.

Thomas H. Burgoyne, an astrologer and founder of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, was born April 14, 1855. Spontaneously psychic, he claimed that as a child he came into contact with the Brotherhood of Light, a group of discarnate, advanced beings who attempt to guide the destiny of humankind. Today that group continues as the Church of Light. At a later date he met a M. Theon, purported to be an earthly representative of the brotherhood who taught Burgoyne about the Brotherhood.Burgoyne moved to the United States around 1880 and soon afterward his writings began to appear in various periodicals.

Victor Stanislas de Guaita, born on 6 April 1861 at 07:00 AM , Chateau de Alteville, France.

French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order, celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved with occultism and magic. Occultism and magic formed a part of his novels. His main work was "The Key to Black Magic."