News Notes
Zip Dobyns
Joan Quigley, who achieved fame as Nancy Reagan’s astrologer, now has her own book published. On March 18, 1990, The Los Angeles Times had an article about her including an interview and picture in the View section of the paper, and a column by a different author in the Opinion section. Many astrologers feel that Joan’s public statements about her personal work for the Reagans were both unprofessional and unethical. What I have seen of her “advice” suggests that it was mostly traditional “good day, bad day” astrology. She was also working with an incorrect birth time for Ronald Reagan, using a Sagittarius rising chart. As I have written before, biographical material, including the memory of his older brother, supports an afternoon birth with Cancer rising. Reagan lied when asked about his birth time, always answering that he was born in the “pre-dawn hours.”
I am not sure whether I am at liberty to give Joan’s own birth data, but I can’t resist telling you about the asteroid Nancy in Joan’s chart. We would expect Nancy to be prominent, right? It is in Joan’s tenth house square her natal Sun in the eighth house and sextile her Ascendant. Her progressed (P) MC in her residence in San Francisco, CA was conjunct natal (N) Nancy when Don Regan’s book spilled the secret in May 1988. Joan’s P Nancy has been conjunct N Moon in Leo through the whole period of Regan’s book, Nancy Reagan’s own book, and now Joan’s book. N and P Halley’s comet is also on both Joan’s N Moon and P Nancy. P Nancy very recently ended an octile to N Mars. Joan’s P local Antivertex was also trine N Nancy for the initial publicity in the Reagan book, and it is on her local IC opposite N Venus for her own book. Also, P Ascendant for Joan’s birthplace reached a square to N Moon, Halley’s Comet, and P Nancy in time for her own book and her P local Ascendant reached a square to N Nancy and opposition to N Sun. Life continues to be spooky.
I’ve been experimenting with a speculative chart for Malcolm Forbes after reading that he may have actually committed suicide because he was quite ill with AIDS and did not want to die slowly and helplessly. He was the millionaire publisher of the financial magazine named for his father who founded it. He was also famous for his motorcycle riding and hot air balloon adventures at an age when most people have turned into couch potatoes. He was born on August 19, 1919 in New York, but I have nothing on his birth time. A chart for 9:38 P.M. EWT fits what I have on his life. It puts 13 Aries on the Ascendant and 7 Capricorn on the MC. The sensationalist story about his cruising of gay bars and paying as much as $2000 to young, muscular men for a night of indulgence comes from the Globe weekly so cannot be considered reliable. The same March 27, 1990 issue of the Globe has a story about Elizabeth Taylor’s many close friendships with gay men, suggesting that she mostly cared for them as brothers, feeling “safe” with them since they would not pursue her sexually. Her friendship with Forbes was well-known, as well as with many Hollywood stars reported to have been homosexual, and she has been very active in raising funds to support AIDS research. The March 22, 1990 Los Angeles Times also had a story about the reports about the private lives of Forbes and others, and they mentioned that the stories had been carried in some mainline papers such as U.S.A. Today.
Since Forbes’ chart is totally speculative, I won’t spend much time on it, but it is interesting that P Pluto held a lifetime conjunction with Asmodeus, the “demon of lust.” Also conjunct Pluto were Osiris and Nephthys, an Egyptian god and goddess of death, and Crescentia. I am exploring the possibility that Crescentia might be related to the Islamic faith since their symbolism includes a star and a crescent moon. Forbes was noted for his great parties, and had held a two million dollar bash in Morocco for his 70th birthday, saying that he might not be here for a later one. According to the Globe story, Forbes especially loved the gay boys in Morocco who called him “master” and who were trained to please men. Morocco is an Islamic country.
I mentioned the recent Titan rocket failure in the Sagittarius 1989 Mutable Dilemma, but did not describe any features in the chart. It is actually rather interesting since it is a relatively positive chart unlike most of the space failures. There are more dramatic conflict features in the heliocentric planetary positions. Helio (H) Mars is exactly on the MC and square the Ascendant, East Point, and Antivertex. H Houston (one of the centers for NASA activity with the Johnson Space Center) is on the IC and square the Ascendant and its two auxiliaries. H Washington is on H Mercury. The Earth-Moon pair are on H America and octile H Atlantis. As most readers know, Earth and Moon are always opposite the degree of the Sun in the geocentric chart. H Pluto is square the Barycenter, the center of mass in the solar system. The order in the sky speaks in many tongues.
Another horoscope which was mentioned in the Sagittarius 1989 Mutable Dilemma was for the brother of Charles Stuart, the man who murdered his wife in Boston. Matthew Stuart had a stellium in Pisces around the Ascendant which formed a mutable grand cross with squares to the Sagittarius MC and Jupiter and Vesta in Gemini and oppositions to Pluto and Uranus in Virgo. The mutable dilemma involves issues around beliefs, goals and values, including ethics which depend on our belief system. Jupiter in the third house fits the description of Matthew of “worshipping his older brother,” so he was willing to help him even though it was for an intended crime. The tragic story reminds me of a study which was done by another student while I was in graduate psychology. He asked questions of a variety of people about what they would do in a series of hypothetical experiences. As one example, the person was asked to say whether if he was riding with his brother and a policeman stopped them for speeding, he would lie to protect his brother or he would tell the truth. Two different ethnic groups were asked the same series of questions, and both figured out what the questioner was looking for but their values were dramatically different. One group, when asked for the “point” of the questions said (in their own words), “You are trying to find out whether I would function according to universal principles when personal emotions are in conflict with the principles.” The other group said, “You are checking to see whether I am loyal to my family.”
I won’t bore you with a lot of asteroids in Matthew’s chart. I will just mention that he had both P Carol and P Carolina conjunct P Sun within one degree when the crime was committed. (You remember that Carol was the name of the wife who was killed). By the time Matthew went to the police and his brother, Charles, committed suicide, Matthew’s P Sun had reached the square to his MC.
For those who collect mundane data, the terrible subway crash in Philadelphia occurred on March 7, 1990 just after the train left the station at 8:30 A.M. Atlantis was on the IC, the south node of Pluto was on the MC, the south node of Saturn was on Mars. The north node of Mars was on the East Point, etc.
What asteroid would we expect to be prominent when the A T & T phone system crashed on January 15, 1990? How about The NORC which was named for a prototype computer, the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator? The time of 2:25 P.M. in NY is given as the start of the crash of the software which handles millions of long distance calls, but the emergency lasted for hours until the “bug” was found and corrected in the software (computer programs). The NORC was retrograding in Gemini in the twelfth house in a yod (double quincunx) to Pluto-Juno in Scorpio in the sixth house and Saturn in Capricorn in the eighth house. The glitch was hard to trace in the huge computer program, a problem in efficiency, and very expensive for A T & T.
My idea for this “regular feature” includes being able to comment on anything I think is interesting from the newspapers and journals which flood into our house and get read sporadically. A relatively new feature in The Los Angeles Times offers short stories on new work in science and medicine. On March 19, 1990, a study on salt was described in which the previous finding was confirmed that only about 15% of the population actually has their blood pressure raised when they increase their salt consumption. The new finding of the study was that about the same 15 % of the population has their blood pressure raised by a low salt diet! Yet the doctors are pushing everyone to stop using salt. Of course I liked the article because I like salt and have refused to cut my consumption.
Another short piece on the same day described a study of 30 macaque monkeys. For a year, half of the monkeys were fed a low-fat diet (the 30% which is being recommended for people) while the other half ate a normal diet of 43% fat. To quote the article, “Over the course of a year, the low-fat eaters averaged 50% more aggressive episodes than their richly fed counterparts. Kaplan said his studies may be relevant to the increased mortality from trauma and violence that researchers have found among about 30,000 humans who have participated in seven cholesterol-lowering trials.” So the low-fat were meaner but did end up with much lower serum cholesterol levels and less atherosclerosis. Take your choice. Astrology connects Jupiter to fat. Ancient traditions have always associated plump and mellow. For the others who like fat, olive oil is benign but stay away from margarine.
The Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1990 reported that despite fears about the “greenhouse” effect, the temperatures in the southeastern U.S. have actually fallen one degree Fahrenheit and yearly rainfall has increased by two inches over the last 30 years. Ain’t science grand?