Tuesday 18 August 2009

Swine flu case - Horary astrology



This is the horary chart I cast about the first serious case of swine flu in Greece. It's the case of a 33-year-old man who contacted the H1N1 virus, it developed into pneumonia and according to the doctors his condition was stable but critical. The question - however morbid - was: Will he die?
Since he is "any other person" he gets the 7th house. The 7th house ruler is the Moon, a cold and moist planet in a hot and dry sign. Yes, he is sick. According to John Frawley, in a medical question the whole chart is about the illness and therefore we don't use the 6th house ruler to signify it. We use the ruler of the person's planet or the planet that our significator is just separating from. In this case, our prime suspect is the Sun. It rules the Moon, it's in the 7th house, it's conjunct the malefic South Node and the Moon is separating from it. The Moon's most recent aspect was the sextile with Mars, who doesn't seem to be the culprit here, although, being a natural malefic, this would explain the patient's condition which had recently taken a turn for the worse. Since the Moon is leaving combustion and increasing in light, the situation looks promising. However, the Moon's next aspect is with the radical 8th house ruler, Mercury. John Frawley says that both the radical and the turned 8th house ruler can kill. Mercury in this chart rules both Saturn, the 1st house ruler ( the patient's doctor - 7th from the 7th) and Venus, the 4th house ruler (the patient's treatment - 10th from the 7th), which means that Mercury (death) has power both over the doctor (Saturn) and the treatment (Venus). As a result, I predicted death.
It turns out I was wrong. He survived and approximately two weeks later he showed definite signs of recovery and he must have left the hospital by now. What went wrong with my judgement? Is the fact that the Moon is gaining strength and leaving combustion enough? Should I not have used the radical 8th house ruler but the turned 8th house ruler, Jupiter? Jupiter is in Aquarius and therefore is ruled by Saturn, the doctor. In this case, the doctor has power over death. Since Frawley says that both can kill, what happens if one ruler gives a positive testimony and the other ruler a negative one? Who wins?
What's also interesting in this chart is that although the Moon is going to oppose Jupiter eventually, which would also be and indication of death, this aspect is prohibited by the sextile to Venus (treatment) which will occur before the opposition to Jupiter. Does this mean that the patient will start to respond to the treatment? Whatever the case, it seems we must forget the Moon's conjunction to Mercury or, at least, it's not enough of a testimony. Unless we consider him to be weak and therefore not able to cause death, because when the Moon conjuncts him, he will still be under the sun beams.
I would very much welcome any thoughts or remarks you might have on this chart.

2 comments:

  1. This is not a comment on the astrology per se, and you may think this is a ridiculous comment, but my experience is that the phrasing of the question is vitally important. If indeed the question was only asked as "Will he die?" as opposed to "Will he die of swine flu?", I'm not surprised the analysis said yes.

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  2. No, that's not a ridiculous comment, far from it. I hadn't thought of that and the truth is I cannot remember. I was watching the news and I decided to cast this chart. Of course I meant "will he die of swine flu", but I'm not sure I phrased it correctly. Thank you.

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