Israel, Palestine, Prophecy.....

Years ago I decided that whenever conflicts arose in relation to the Israel-Palestine question I'd stay well away from conversations or postings on that sensitive topic. Conflicts in that part of the world have been ongoing for most of my life, so I've had lots of practice!

With recent Israeli attacks on Gaza the issue comes once again to the fore. I have much sympathy with the people of Gaza at present, so what follows below in no way indicates that I support Israel and its too often aggressive attitude to its neighbours. This time around, rather than ignoring the current conflict completely, I've copy-typed an obliquely relevant old article - another from "Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933-1935", a compilation published in 1978 by Edward A. Wagner. The article, from the 1933 section: Palestine - And the future of the Jews by Count Louis Hamon (Cheiro). Here's some information about the author. There's more HERE too.

Cheiro's natal chart is at astro.com HERE. He had Sun/Saturn and Mercury in Scorpio, Uranus trine Sun. Moon in Virgo, Sagittarius rising.


The piece is presented with this editorial comment which helps put it into context:

Arab riots in Jerusalem and the Jewish exodus from Germany inspired the Journal to secure this authoritative and illuminating article for its readers. In this arresting feature "Cheiro" the famous seer, indicates the real reason underlying the recent attacks upon the Jews, and its aftermath on the destiny of the world at large. This manuscript presents a side and solution to this perplexing problem that presidents, dictators, rulers and diplomats may well study.

(Highlights in italics are Cheiro's own. Illustrations were added by me, the two in the article didn't copy well).

Palestine - And the future of the Jews by Count Louis Hamon (Cheiro)

Readers of my book Cheiro's World Predictions, published as far back as 1926, must undoubtedly be struck by the many statements made in it regarding the return of the Jews to Palestine and the ultimate effect of this "return" to their own land, as a distinct fulfillment of prophecy set out thousands of years ago in the pages of the "Sacred Book".

I cannot do better than to open this article by three powerful quotations: "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations and declare it in the isles afar off. He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock" (Jer.31:10).

And again, "For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." (Jer 30:3)

And they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord .(Amos 10:14,15)

Taking these three prophecies alone, the recent expulsion of the Jews from Germany will be seen as nothing more or less than a fulfillment of the mysterious destiny of a race, called for some other mysterious reason "the Chosen People". Looking at events by such a light, Hitlerites, Nazis and revolutions are mere instruments to turn the minds of Israel once more to Zion, the land of their fathers where the protecting hand of Britain, once made greater by the famous Jew, "Disraeli", is raised against their Arab oppressors, even unto the gate of Damascus.

I may say, in this connection, that Palestine and the surrounding countries will become the most fertile and one of the richest provinces in the world. Minerals and rare metals will be found there in abundance, and large deposits of coal and oil will be discovered in this part of the earth in inexhaustible quantities. *

(* Unfathomed Wealth of the Dead Sea and Palestine, 240,524,000,000 pounds. Four great financial groups- British, American, European and Anglo-Palestinian - are hankering after the concession to work the huge mineral and chemical deposits which lie hidden in the depths of the Dead Sea.)

Now, that there was some divine plan or design underlying such a marvelous creation as the Great Pyramid must be apparent to anyone who makes even a casual study of the subject. That this plan or design is linked up with Jewish history and contains in its records exact periods corresponding to the principal events in its destiny, stands out in bold relief against the dark background of time.

Yet strange and impossible as it may seem on first sight, the meaning of this great mysterious monument was clearly foreshadowed thousands of years ago in the words of Isiah, chapter 19:19,20:
"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt."

It has recently been demonstrated that the Great Pyramid, "the sign" and "the witness" to the Lord of Heaven, denotes to a fraction the number of days in our solar year, together with the period of time known as the "precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac". The length of its diagonals, when added together, gives, as stated before (in an earlier article), the exact cipher of 25,850.

It also contains the Hebrew sacred cubit, which later was actually employed by Solomon in constructing the first Temple, and still later, it became the standard measurement for following civilisations. From it, the English and American inch derives its origin.

Further, the mysterious empty sarcophagus found in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid contains the same capacity measurement as did the Ark of the Covenant.

H/t HERE

The distinct "chiselled line" found in the descending passage of the Great Pyramid, denotes that at midnight in the autumnal equinox in the year 2150B.C., the then polar star, a Draconis, shone down the descending passage to this "chiselled line", the only mark of its kind in the Pyramid.

  (taken from Lemesurier's Great Pyramid Decoded.) H/t HERE

I disagree with other writers who assert that this strangely recorded date must have been the date of completion of the building. I take this date to show a time in world history of some extraordinary occurrence and one so marked that from it other dates might be calculated.

Taking this date to commemorate such a great event as the "Promise" given to Abraham, 2150 B.C., it becomes a decided milestone in the history of the past when the nation of Israel came into existence.

From Abraham to the final fall and destruction of Jerusalem is a cycle of approximately 2150 years, and at its close, the Gentile nations come into power. From this to the end of 2150 A.D. is another distinct span. At its close history will in all probability repeat itself - the law of rise and fall of time's tides will become manifest and the Israelites for the following period of 2150 years will be in the ascendant. "Coming events cast their shadows before", and if we are discerning, we can see this trend of things rapidly approaching.

Looking forward from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, the cycle brings us to A.D. 700, the date of the commencement of Mohammedan power, their possession of the Holy City, and their conquest of Egypt. Add to this again the 700 year cycle and we get 1400, the century in which America was discovered, an epoch of importance in the destiny of mankind.

Taking the Discovery of America a point of great meaning, and adding the 700 cycle, we reach the great primordial date of 2100 A.D., allowing for fractions in the precess of the equinox. This date should see the new world of America approaching the commencement of a period of greatness and power - the magnitude of which it is impossible to estimate.

This important date for the continent of America coincides with the date given for the return of the Israelites into their own land, and the commencement of the Twelve Tribes as one nation, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah,
"In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the North to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers." (Jer.3:18).
As space forbids my going further, my next article will show how other prophecies concerning the Jews are being fulfilled, proving that their present persecution is only one of many stages in their destiny.

Make of all that what you will! One thing I noted: Cheiro's prophecy at the end of the piece relates to "the continent of America", rather than to the USA - that could prove to especially significant. Other writers, since Cheiro, have no doubt arrived at alternative dates and conclusions on all counts. I thought, at one point at least, that Cheiro jumped across a chasm of supposition and came to a conclusion many would question. But maybe my eyes were crossed by so much unaccustomed copy-typing!

Goddess of Prophecy and More

 Carmenta

Another day, another Roman festival - how they loved their festivals! 15 January, in Ancient Rome, marked the second of two festivals honoring the goddess of prophecy, Carmenta, first day of Carmentalia was 11th January. Carmenta, as well as being a prophetess was goddess of childbirth and midwifery. There was originally one Carmenta worshipped by the "flamines," her priests. Later there were said to be many Carmentes, female deities who appeared to assist women in labor and to tell the fortune of the newborn child. Romans made offerings of rice to the goddess and feasted on cream-filled pastries shaped like male and female genitalia or in triangle-shape filled with raspberry jam.(Link)

Carmenta (known as Nicostrata to the Greeks) was famous for chanting her prophecies in verse.She is also credited with naming Rome's Palatine Hill and in a vision predicted it would be the future site of the Roman Empire. She laid the city's first stone, instituted a system of laws for the surrounding region, and invented the Latin alphabet and language. Quite a gal!

Still on the topic of prophecy and returning to the book from which I quoted yesterday C.E.O. Carter's Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology:

PROPHECY
It is probable that such prophecy as may truly be the result of inspiration or revelation from higher entities would be shown horoscopically by a strong 9th house, and by Jupiter and Neptune, as well as sometimes Uranus. Such cases, however, are rare, and their possibility is admitted by comparatively few at the present day. Natives of watery signs and also Sagittarius are prone to have presentiments, but it is probable that in most cases these are purely fanciful.

Astrological prophecy, properly so called, has nothing to do with such methods, but depends upon the interpretation of present and future influences mathematically obtained and intellectually apprehended. At the same time it is undeniable that many astrologers, and particularly those with strong Jupiter 9th house influences, develop an intuitive accuracy of judgment that may in time act so promptly and surely that it may appear to partake of the nature of inspiration.

On the other hand, those in whose horoscopes Mercury and Jupiter are afflicted should be cautious in making forecasts, especially when under bad directions to these planets.

Flicking quickly through Astrotheme's lists of well-known people with Jupiter (and other planets) in 9th house, a few well-known astrologers emerged:

Patrick Walker (Jupiter Neptune, Mercury in 9th)
Alan Oken (Jupiter and Pluto in 9th)
Julia Parker (Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune in 9th)
Jonathan Cainer (Jupiter in 9th + Sun in Sagittarius)

I have a lonely Jupiter in 9th, as it happens, but all I can confidently prophecy is that there'll be another anniversary of an Ancient Roman festival along soon.

Unwittingly Prophetic Authors

An article by novelist Tom Lonergan at Huffington Post this week, My Novel Predicted Boston Marathon Attack reminded me of an old post of my own. Synopsis from cover of Lonergan's Heartbreak Hill (2002):

"The trouble with most terrorists is they think too small. This is the message Boston police receive days before fifteen thousand runners and two and a half million spectators descend on the city for the marathon........."

An edited version of my 2006 post follows:


ACCIDENTAL PROPHETS

James Michener seemed to have 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 favourite books 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 WorldWar 2. 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! His novel 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", 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 sinking, 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 Beyond the Spectrum in which 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, aircraft 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 World War 2.

Michener was born 1907, Shute 1899 and Robertson 1861.

There are, of course, common sense explanations for the authors' seeming futuristic vision. These writers 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 intuitively "putting two and two together"

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.

Open-minded readers, sensitive to peculiar coincidences like these, might see different explanations. Novelists and short story writers continually tap into vast resources of imagination. For hours at a time, on a regular basis, 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 by factual knowledge stored in their memory banks, they somehow inadvertently seep through a time barrier or into another dimension?

Comets, Prophecies, Mother Shipton, William Lilly.

I understand that round about now Comet Lulin (or is it Lu Lin?) is travelling at its nearest point to Earth, close to Saturn in Virgo, and close to the ecliptic. Nobody has any clear idea what astrological significance comets have; as each one passes we watch and wait, and hope a pattern emerges.

Traditionally comets have had a somewhat doomy reputation, often connected to the death of kings or leaders. I wonder whether this came about coincidentally, because it just so happened that a king once died while a comet was observable in the skies. Perhaps on more than one occasion someone prominent in public life shuffled off this mortal coil along with a comet's passing. Well, there are and were lots of kings and leaders in the world at any one time, many in their senior years. It doesn't take much imagination to see how that idea might have been born.

A medieval painting (1456 AD) shows a comet and ill-effects quite clearly: weather disruption, death, sickness. Again, whether connected to the comet or some other (astrological or different) reason isn't known.

Medieval Painting Dated 1456 AD, Near A Pass Of Halley's Comet.

Prophets and mediums throughout the years have come up with visions and predictions of doom and gloom; on occasion they, or their listeners have sometimes linked these to asteroids or comets striking the Earth, setting off all manner of disaster. It's not out of the question that this did happen in the very distant past, and could one day happen again. I don't, though, think that any prophet's proposed dates for the events are to be relied upon.

For the strong of constitution there's a website on the subject of predictions of disaster-by-comet HERE. I was particularly interested in the chapter on Mother Shipton (1488 - 1561) and her prophecies which some would try to say can be linked to disasters still to happen. She was a prophetess (some called her a witch) who lived in Yorkshire - my home county in England.

Mother Shipton's real name was Agatha Southeil, Shipton after marriage. There's a memorial place - Mother Shipton's Cave and Dripping Well or Petrifying Well, in a town called Knaresborough, on the banks of River Nidd.


People, over time have left small objects (children's shoes, hat, gloves, etc.) hanging under dripping water near the cave, and due to a heavy dose of minerals in the water, the objects have turned to stone. I visited the cave several times, long ago with my parents.
I recall that my grandmother, also a Yorkshire woman, had an old postcard with some of the Shipton prophecies printed on it. She kept it carefully preserved in her dressing table drawer. A few lines from the card I still remember

"Around the world thoughts shall fly,
in the twinkling of an eye....
Iron in the water shall float
As easy as a wooden boat;
Gold shall be found, and found,
In a land that's not now known".... there was more.

Some sources on the net propose that the whole thing, including Mother Shipton's existence, is a hoax. That, I believe is untrue. I do think though that additions have been made to her original prophecies in more modern times - there lies the hoax.

At a website presenting information from a detailed investigation of the Shipton story, carried out in 1881, here a name familiar to astrologers crops up: William Lilly. He "makes no question that Mother Shipton existed, and says that in his time the authenticity of her prophecies was undisputed. He had means, which we in modern times have not, of drawing a conclusion, and altogether it is tolerably certain that Mother Shipton had an actual existence."

The conclusion, from study of unimpeachable sources, available in in the British Museum, was that Mother Shipton's prophecies were fulfilled before the middle of the 17th Century. That tends to cancel out any present-day doom-mongers' attempts to place events Mother Shipton had prophesied into the 21st century or later, and relate them to comet or asteroid strikes still to come. She did say that the world would end in 1881, so her prophecies, in common with those of all prophets through the years, were not infallible.

There's an interesting article on Mother Shipton's life at a section of the Knaresborough tourist website. It's an easy, but long, read, with serious historical detail included about her parents and background. (Left: Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough, Yorkshire.)

Prophecy, Astrologers, Carmenta.

On the topic of prophecy British astrologer C.E.O. Carter had this to say in his Encyclopedia of Psychological Astrology (in print continually from 1924):

PROPHECY
It is probable that such prophecy as may truly be the result of inspiration or revelation from higher entities would be shown horoscopically by a strong 9th house, and by Jupiter and Neptune, as well as sometimes Uranus. Such cases, however, are rare, and their possibility is admitted by comparatively few at the present day. Natives of watery signs and also Sagittarius are prone to have presentiments, but it is probable that in most cases these are purely fanciful.

Astrological prophecy, properly so called, has nothing to do with such methods, but depends upon the interpretation of present and future influences mathematically obtained and intellectually apprehended. At the same time it is undeniable that many astrologers, and particularly those with strong Jupiter 9th house influences, develop an intuitive accuracy of judgment that may in time act so promptly and surely that it may appear to partake of the nature of inspiration.

On the other hand, those in whose horoscopes Mercury and Jupiter are afflicted should be cautious in making forecasts, especially when under bad directions to these planets.

I flicked very quickly through Astrotheme's lists of well-known people with Jupiter (and other planets) in 9th house, and found a few well-known astrologers:

Patrick Walker (Jupiter Neptune, Mercury in 9th)
Alan Oken (Jupiter and Pluto in 9th)
Julia Parker (Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune in 9th)
Jonathan Cainer (Jupiter in 9th + Sun in Sagittarius)

And I have a lonely Jupiter in 9th, as it happens!

Staying on the subject of prophecy, in Rome today, 15 January, marked the second day of a 2-day festival honoring the goddess of prophecy, Carmenta. The first day of Carmentalia was 11th January. Carmenta, as well as being a prophetess was goddess of childbirth and midwifery. There was originally one Carmenta who was worshipped by the "flamines," her priests. Later there were said to be many Carmentes, female deities who appeared to assist women in labor and to tell the fortune of the newborn child. Romans made offerings of rice to the goddess and feasted on cream-filled pastries shaped like male and female genitalia or triangle-shaped pastries filled with raspberry jam.(Link)

Carmenta (known as Nicostrata to the Greeks) was famous for chanting her prophecies in verse.She is also credited with naming the Palentine Hill and in a vision predicted it would be the future site of the Roman Empire. She laid the city's first stone, instituted a system of laws for the surrounding region, and invented the Latin alphabet and language. Quite a gal!

Illustration, right: ‘Typus Gramatica’ showing Carmenta/ Nicostrata holding a hornbook and key, introducing a child into a tower of learning with six storeys.


The arches to the right of the photograph form the remains of the ancient gateway Porta Carmentalis, close to the site of Carmenta's temple at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.

Involuntary Prophets ?

Mentioning James Michener and Nevil Shute yesterday called to mind a post of mine from 2 years ago. (My oh my, 2 years! Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself?) I'm re-posting a slightly adjusted version,'cos I still find the subject intriguing.



ACCIDENTAL PROPHETS(First posted 10 December 2006).

James Michener seemed to have 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 favourite books "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! His novel "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 a slight 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, of course, 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" with a bit of Aquarian 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 the 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, on a regular basis, 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?

Any correspondences in the natal charts of these three writers?

Morgan Robertson born 30 September 1861 Oswego, New York
Nevil Shute born 17 January 1899, Ealing, England
James Michener born 3 February 1907, New York

1. All 3 writers have Sun and Mercury in the same sign (not uncommon.)

2. In Robertson's case Neptune opposes Sun. Shute and Michener both have Neptune and Sun inconjunct(quincunx).

So....Neptune's aspects to the Sun may well be significant, especially as Mercury (writers' planet) shares the same sign as Sun in the three charts.

More detail:
Robertson: Sun at 7 Libra/Neptune at 00Aries (Aries Point) opposition
Shute: Sun at 27 Capricorn/Neptune at 22 Gemini- inconjunct (quincunx)
Michener: Sun at 14 Aquarius/Neptune at 10 Cancer-inconjunct(quincunx)

Neptune represents imagination and mysticism. Maybe the push-pull of an opposition, or friction from a quincunx aspect Neptune/Sun can push aside the "veil" of present reality. When individuals with such aspects engage in activities needing acute and long-term concentration, it could be that their visions become more than simple imagination. An interesting subject for research.

Morgan Robertson, the writer with Sun and Neptune in opposition, dispayed the most surprising ability of the three authors, but the other two do exhibit lesser, or more explainable, examples though still remarkable.

Perhaps the best explanation, for now, is that intense concentration of a mind with certain Neptune/Sun energies in-built, and knowledge in specific fields, gained from experience, can result in reasonably accurate prognostication. It sounds reasonable enough to me!