Ghostly Visitations and Asteroid Gostin
Ben McNenly B.F.A.
In the continuing saga of peculiar events that seem to have accompanied a transit of Uranus/Neptune over my MC is one personal experience with the ghost of a dead client a year ago and more recently a haunting that went on one night at my second place of residence/business which was witnessed by my mother. In both cases, an asteroid whose name resembles ghost (Gostin) made a very impressive showing in natal and event charts for these occasions.
I should begin by pointing out the obvious fact that Gostin and ghost are not the same thing. But as many other asteroid researchers have discovered, you do not always need an exact letter for letter match to get a meaningful correlation. As a lookalike, this point seems to work very well indeed.
Stella Yusko had been a client of mine for many years and had been in the hospital with cancer. The doctors had given her a few weeks to live. Stella was an old friend of my mother, Gwen. Mother visited Stella in the hospital on the night I am describing but I purposefully avoided going, not wishing to place myself in the awkward position of being asked to make any predictions. I justified my procrastination by reassuring myself that after all Stella was not in a critical stage yet. However, unbeknownst to me, she died a few hours after seeing Gwen. This happened just as the transiting Placidus 8th house cusp made a close conjunction with asteroid Stellafane in my nativity.
I had stayed that night at my parent’s house and was sleeping in a bedroom in the basement. I dreamed, however, that I was looking down the hall of my own place some 50 miles away. At the end of the hall in the adjoining room was my pet budgie, Duffy, in her cage. A bright, blinding light pierced the darkness, startling the bird who began fluttering about in her cage. I bolted up from my bed and stared into the darkness until it dawned on me that I wasn’t back at my place. Then, suddenly, a feeling that Stella was dead came over me. I also experienced an inexplicable sense that I had never before had in my life, that I was being watched. I immediately took note of the time and tried to return to sleep. Each time I turned my back to the darkness, I felt a stare so powerful, I had to turn over to verify that no one was in the room. Finally, after about 15 minutes, I blurted out “Stella, will you take a hike and let me sleep.” I felt bad at saying this, and in my mind I said “go towards the light.” Stella was a very bold Aries, and it was just like her to be doggedly insistent when she wanted something, especially my advice. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Mars was square the natal position of Gostin (ghost) in my chart while Gostin was just past a conjunction with my Saturn.
In the chart cast for the time I was startled out of my sleep, you will find asteroid Gostin rises conjunct Uranus—surprised/awakened by a ghost. In Stella’s chart there is a one minute conjunction between asteroid Marion (my street address where she expected to find me) and her Jupiter. Transiting East Point is conjunct transiting asteroid Byrd (bird). The transiting Descendant is conjunct Stella’s natal asteroid Byrd. Transiting asteroid Benjamina (me) is opposed to Stella’s natal Seeligeria. I read this name as “see-linger” or stare. It works very reliably as “simply being stared at.” I have tested it with other client work. Transiting Venus was at 6 Taurus 54 conjunct transiting Seeligeria at 4 Taurus 55 on my natal Ascendant and in Stella’s chart, it opposed Arete (French for stop) and Urania (astrology) and Lumiere (French for light). I translate this combination as “stop staring at the astrologer and go toward the light.” It seems poetic that asteroid Emanuela (God is with us) is retrograding into an opposition with her Jupiter which may perhaps signify Stella’s joy in returning to God. She had always been very religious.
My second example of asteroid Gostin at work is related to my mother Gwen’s chart. I decided to take a week off for a holiday. Mom house-sat, took care of the bird, and got caught up with some rather extensive sewing at my place while I was away. Over the past year, there had been a number of minor incidents that made me think we had a resident ghost. One occasion involved Gwen being awakened from a sound sleep by having her foot yanked by an invisible guest. I was skeptical about this and didn’t record any event information, but I should have because a few days later a friend who had been visiting the night of the incident explained she had the exact same experience several days later. All of this fits perfectly with Uranus/Neptune opposing my nadir.
At about 3:30 A.M. July 13, there commenced a series of loud footsteps seemingly emanating from the attic. (This was physically impossible since our attic has no more than a 3 or 4 foot clearance to the roof). The footsteps seemed to stop in the center of the attic and then a terrible pounding noise commenced. After this, it was as though the sounds moved right into the main floor. Heavy footsteps started in the kitchen and went down a hall to the living room where Gwen had been up late sewing. In relating this story to me, my mother humorously explained that she was not frightened, but the loud noises seemed to wake up the bird who began to chirp incessantly from his covered cage. After about twenty minutes of noise, Gwen prayed to God for protection and for peace to descend on the house. It then seemed as though the “presence” had moved outside. It sounded as if there was someone outside banging on the walls and at one point scratching the walls. However, no one could be observed from the windows. My mother, in an attempt to find a rational explanation in spite of the incongruities, speculated that maybe this might be a burglar, possibly trying to get in through a basement window despite every light in the house having been turned on while investigating the noise. When Gwen heard loud footsteps on their way up from the cellar stairs, this was the last straw. She bolted shut the basement door and called 911 on the phone. Two police cars arrived minutes later and made a thorough search of the neighborhood but found nothing. The noises had simply stopped as inexplicably as they had started.
The police checked out the attic, but could find no evidence of a break-in from the attic window or anywhere else. Any half intelligent burglar would certainly have avoided a house with the lights on and a car in the driveway. The police suggested that perhaps it was a raccoon. While this might explain some of the noise, it could not account for footsteps coming up from the basement or for the other instantaneous changes in the locations of the sounds. In light of other peculiar happenings earlier in the house, this left us with only one other explanation. We had a resident ghost.
It is remarkable how all the details of what Gwen experienced are supported by transits to her chart, starting with transiting asteroid Gostin conjunct her Ascendant and natal asteroid Baade. Translation: a bad ghost. Transiting asteroid Byrd on the Descendant opposed natal Baade and transiting Gostin. As an amusing sidelight, my mother had recently scolded the budgie for biting, calling her a “bad bird.” Now it seems the bird was alerting her to the presence of something else that was “bad.” In some mythologies, birds are said to recognize migrating souls. Also, other astrological techniques repeated the message. In Tertiary Progressions, the MC was at the heliocentric midpoint of Baade/Gostin while in Gwen’s Minor Progressions Saturn was within minutes of a square to natal Gostin and the progressed EP was precisely conjunct Gostin. The transiting Part of Spirit was at 4 Sagittarius conjunct Gwen’s natal asteroid Gostin. Mom’s defense was to say a prayer and asteroid Emanuela (God is with us) was setting in opposition to rising Gostin. Transiting asteroid number 911 (Agamemnon) was on the Descendant with Herschel (discoverer of Uranus—i.e. surprise) which fits calling 911 because you were surprised by a ghost.
Later, we discussed theories about the haunting. Mom suggested that the land the house was built on could possibly be an Indian burial ground. This could be a credible explanation because transiting asteroid Gostin was opposed to transiting Metis (of Indian ancestry) and Landau (land).
After all these correlations, it suddenly occurred to me that I still had charts for the time of the agreement to rent the house and for the actual time of the move. When I presented the landlord with the rent at 7 P.M. EDT on June 1, 1989 in Sudbury, Ont., 46 N 30, 81 W 0, asteroid Gostin was at 4 Gemini 18, asteroid Marion (my street name) was at 2 Sagittarius 44, and the East Point was at 6 Sagittarius 16. Gostin thus formed an exact midpoint with the other two points. When I began the move into the house (June 28, 1989 at 4:40 P.M. EDT), Marion was at 28 Scorpio 21, the East Point was at 28 Scorpio 10, and the mean lunar nodes were at 28 Leo-Aquarius 18. It is remarkable that for both events, Marion landed on the East Point and, for one of them, it directly opposed Gostin (ghost). Also, to my amazement, when the haunting began at 3:30 A.M., the transiting Ascendant was at 20 Gemini 29 just past geocentric natal Gostin at 19 Gemini 7 and coming to transiting heliocentric Marion at 21 Gemini 26. At the same time, the transiting East Point (26 Taurus) was nearing a conjunction with transiting Gostin (28 Taurus), but more importantly this would plug into the natal positions of Marion, East Point, and the lunar nodes which were all in 28 degrees of the fixed signs in the chart for my move into the residence.
At the time of this writing, nothing further has occurred with regard to this haunting. One always has doubts about this kind of experience, but astrologically speaking I think it is verifiable. Several psychics who have visited the house have confirmed my suspicions. Both Mom and I think this is more amusing than scary. In the horoscope of my agreement to rent the house, asteroid Gostin opposes Hilaritas. It seems to be typical of the imagery associated with a Uranus/Neptune conjunction in Capricorn to have our notions of “reality” suddenly turned upside down.
Asteroid abbreviations used:
Ag 911 Agamemnon
At 197 Arete (stop)
By 3505 Byrd
Em 576 Emanuela
Go 3640 Gostin
He 2000 Herschel (surprise)
Lu 775 Lumiere (light)
Mr 506 Marion
Se 892 Seeligeria
Ua 30 Urania