Fixed Stars in Zodiac Sign Scorpio

It's time to look at Scorpio's batch of stars in this series of monthly posts on Fixed Stars in each tropical zodiac sign.

Data comes from Astroweb (HERE), showing star positions in 1900 in the left-hand column and in 2000 on the right.

Astrological interpretations for most of those stars, if found to be tightly conjunct a natal personal planet, or important point, are available online. A good, all-encompassing website to investigate for this is Constellation of Words.

My choices to feature further this month are Zuben Elgenubi and Toliman aka Bungula - the former because I've come across it while researching particular posts in the past, and the latter because it's conjunct my own natal Mars.

Zuben Elgenubi

It's in the southern claw (or south scale) of the scorpion in constellation of Libra.

I noticed this star when researching for a post on radical activist Jack Reed in 2010 -Reed, Reds and Radicals,

SNIP

[Reed's] Natal Jupiter, in 1887, lay smack-dab on fixed star Zuben Elgenubi (Southern Scale or Southern Claw of the scorpion). This star had a bad press from ancient astrologers, considered unfortunate whatever planet it conjoined. However, I found one interpretation of Zuben Elgenubi which does fit the present case well(see here)

ZUBEN ELGENUB -- 15SCO03I -- #19975 -- mag2.9
The alpha star of Libra and the southern scale. Both stars of the scales of Libra can be considered twins and, therefore, represent the polarity of a concept. The concept is of social reform and this star, although traditionally seen as the shadowy, more difficult star, is actually the one linked to the positive side of social awareness. When this star is strongly emphasised, the individual has a desire to be constructively involved in social reform.
Influence: Positive social reform
Ptolemy - the Southern Scale Jupiter & Mercury Medically, this double star has Mars/Sat characteristics. If conj a malefic, it may present health problems.

And, more recently I met Zuben Elgenubi again in a post about Russell Williams: Officer and Murderer

SNIP

When Williams was born, Neptune at 15 Scorpio was conjunct fixed star South Scale, aka Zuben Elgenubi. Interpretation of South Scale with Neptune:

With Neptune: Morose, melancholy, isolated, shrewd, cunning, evil use of occult powers and of poisons or drugs, cynical, dangerous, broods over some secret, peculiar death, often suicide. [Robson*, p.206.] (See Constellation of Words.)

It was reported that Williams did actually attempt suicide in his jail cell. A generation had this Neptune/South Scale conjunction in their natal charts, but not all had it connected by aspect to personal planets. Williams had the conjunction in harmonious trine to his natal Sun, also in uncomfortable square aspect to Saturn. Coincidentally film director, screenwriter, producer and actor Quentin Tarantino, born around three weeks later than Williams, in the USA, also had Neptune & South Scale square Saturn. In his case it could be said that his films' subject matter, an "aestheticization of violence", and neo-noir style reflect this aspect.

I'm guessing that latent negative characteristics, indicated by the Neptune/South Scale conjunction's aspects to personal planets, were triggered when Uranus conjoined Williams' natal Pisces Sun - whose ruler is Neptune.

Toliman/Bungula

Located above the right front hoof of the Centaur.

 click on it for clearer view

Alan Oken, in his "Complete Astrology" wrote:

That clip came from HERE, the passage continues (taken from my own copy of Oken's book)

....career, but the individual may attract many enemies. It is so placed in the horoscopes of Robert Kennedy and Indira Gandhi. It is found conj. the Ascendant (along with Jupiter and Neptune) in Disraeli's chart as well as conj. the Ascendant in the natus of Henry Ford. In Churchill's map it is close to, but not exactly conj. the M.C.

From Constellation of Words:

With Mars (as in my own case): Physical endurance, considerable mental power, speaker or writer, little prominence. [Robson*, p.149.]

The last bit's correct, anyway: "little prominence" !


From Terry Nazon, under the star's alternative name, Bungula:

Occult and philosophical learning, self analysis, honours, stubborn, cruel.

Hmmm....I have, over the years, gathered a soupçon of occult information, and can certainly be stubborn - but the rest doesn't fit.

Can anyone else lay claim to one or more of Scorpio's fixed stars, and if so, do traditional interpretations fit?

Officer & Murderer

Last week we watched An Officer and a Murderer on Netflix, it had originated on Lifetime TV channel. I wasn't aware, until the movie ended, that it was based on real life events, though the way the film moved on to its final scenes did arouse suspicions of that. The tale was, indeed, a true one. It is based on events involving Colonel Russell Williams between 2007 and 2010 in Canada, "a walking Jekyll and Hyde" who suddenly embarked on a life of crime in 2007, escalating from panty thief fetishist to murderer.

There's a good, all-encompassing article about the actual events, written in October 2010 by Jim Rankin and Sandro Contenta, staff reporters at the star.com:
Col. Russell Williams: A serial killer like none police have seen.

SNIPS only - to give brief outline:

In Ottawa, a burglar was stealing lingerie in a middle-class neighbourhood, careful to break in when no one was home.In Tweed, 200 kilometres west, two women were sexually assaulted by a man who took pictures but did not attempt penetration. In Brighton, south of Tweed, an air force flight attendant was badly beaten, raped and murdered.

The modi operandi could not have been more different. Police considered a link to the Tweed sexual assaults when Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd, 27, went missing in late January from her home near the village. But nothing could have prepared them for the suspect they finally caught. Col. David Russell Williams — who this past week indicated through his lawyer that he intends to plead guilty on Oct. 18 to two murders, two sex assaults and a string of fetish break-ins — is a serial killer like none they have ever seen.

“This guy is quite unusual,” says psychologist Vernon Quinsey, who spent 16 years assessing criminals at the Oak Ridge maximum security psychiatric hospital in Penetanguishene.
“We haven't seen guys like this in the past and we don't expect to see a lot of them in the future.”

Williams had a successful career and a long, apparently loving marriage, and didn't embark on a life of crime until he began a series of fetish home burglaries in September 2007, at the age of 44.

“It's very unusual for a guy who's got his act together like that ... to all of a sudden start committing crimes at a late age,” says Quinsey, professor emeritus of psychology, biology and psychiatry at Queen's University.....“Almost nobody starts a life of crime when they're in their 40s.” Equally unusual was his escalation from panty fetish to sex assault to murder. Most serial killers assault and kill in tandem, right from the start.

Williams seems a walking Jekyll and Hyde: by day, commander of CFB Trenton, the biggest air force base in Canada; by night, a sexual predator.

But Quinsey dismisses suggestions of a split personality, describing it as a popular but misused term, long associated with schizophrenics. And Williams is no schizophrenic...........

Both Quinsey and Woods speculate that a sudden, significant event might have triggered Williams' life of crime. “We all have stressors that put pressure on us and we all have different ways of relieving it,” says Woods, who left the RCMP in 2007 and now runs a company that trains police forces on criminal profiling. “Some people go for a run, others have a glass of wine, and sexual predators go out and rape.”

Says Quinsey: “The only scenario I can think of is that this guy had these interests for a long time, but he was able to control them. And then something sets him off and he can't control them any more.”

What set him off?.....

ASTROLOGY

Crime experts were surprised and puzzled - I'll don my Sherlock Holmes hat and try to discover whether astrologers would be surprised and puzzled too.

Russell Williams was born on 7 March 1963 in Bromsgrove, UK. No time of birth is known, chart is set for 12 noon, so Moon position will not be exact, nor will rising sign.

First impression, in general: lots of oppositions. It doesn't surprise me that this man had two distinct sides to his nature. Many people have charts with configurations such as this this though, without weird outcome.

Getting to the nitty-gritty...what was going on in 2007 that might have triggered Williams' crime spree? Transiting Uranus, planet of change and the unexpected, conjoined his natal Pisces Sun!

When Williams was born, Neptune at 15 Scorpio was conjunct fixed star South Scale, aka Zuben Elgenubi. Interpretation of South Scale with Neptune:

With Neptune: Morose, melancholy, isolated, shrewd, cunning, evil use of occult powers and of poisons or drugs, cynical, dangerous, broods over some secret, peculiar death, often suicide. [Robson*, p.206.] (See Constellation of Words.)

It was reported that Williams did actually attempt suicide in his jail cell. A generation had this Neptune/South Scale conjunction in their natal charts, but not all had it connected by aspect to personal planets. Williams had the conjunction in harmonious trine to his natal Sun, also in uncomfortable square aspect to Saturn. Coincidentally film director, screenwriter, producer and actor Quentin Tarantino, born around three weeks later than Williams, in the USA, also had Neptune & South Scale square Saturn. In his case it could be said that his films' subject matter, an "aestheticization of violence", and neo-noir style reflect this aspect.

I'm guessing that latent negative characteristics, indicated by the Neptune/South Scale conjunction's aspects to personal planets, were triggered when Uranus conjoined Williams' natal Pisces Sun - whose ruler is Neptune.