At the Lodge - 4th October 2004

Lodge Lecture | Class | Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

Today's lecture was given by Geri Sullivan and Saffi Crawford. The talk came from their book 'Astrology and the Playing Cards' which will be published later this year. It was based on a previously hidden ancient Mystical Card System from the Rosicrucions that assigns every birthday of the year to a playing card and has very definite planetary connections. We were all given a grid in order to find the card that represented our date of birth. The good thing about this system is that it soon became apparent that a time and place was not necessary. Two different spreads of playing cards were shown, one representing the earthly side and one representing the spiritual side, with planetary indications at the top and the side of the spreads. Having established our planetary influences it was surprising how these planets did influence our lives. The suites also indicated earth (diamonds), emotional (hearts), fire (clubs) and air (spades). There were positive and negative readings for al the numbers with the picture cards repeating the early numbers, with extra information. The cards were read to the left of the card of your birth for earthly matters and to the right for spiritual matters. The cycle followed a sun cycle with the calendar beginning on the first of January. Even the Joker was included. He represented 31st December.

This was a fascinating method of using astrology and I am looking forward to adding the book to my collection very soon.

Carole West

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Charts Discussion

We started with a chart bought in by Bernard Eccles, that of Russ Meyer, the recently departed film director. We don't have a time which is problematic as the Sun moves from Pisces to Aries in the early hours of the morning but as so much of his life is shown by the rest of his chart, it's not such a problem. He was interested in photography from an early age and was very technically proficient, winning prizes and being drafted by the military during the war to take reportage photographs. He was also involved in the operation which was later dramatised as The Dirty Dozen. After the war he began to experiment with soft core photography and was soon established as one of the best in the business, due as much to his technical acumen as to his eye for the ladies. The grand trine in fire between Venus in Aries, Mars in Sagittarius and Neptune in Leo is wonderfully symbolic of the director of sexy films. Venus is also pulled into a T-square with Pluto, Jupiter and the Moon (towards the beginning of the day). Venus Pluto is usually seen as a sexy combination and if you add the enlarging influence of Jupiter, the Pluto is in Cancer and you also have the Moon then it's not difficult to work out what his particular sexual obsession was, is it? This was a man who was obsessed by breasts throughout his life. He was also a man obsessed by budgets - Moon in Capricorn? His films have now reached cult status and now form part of many university courses. Despite his unusual creative vision - Uranus conjunct Mercury in Pisces - he has been accepted as establishment - Moon in Capricorn.

The next chart we looked at was that of Tony Blair. We also had the charts of his heart scare last October and a possible chart for his operation last Friday, 1st October. The first scare was timed by Mars being square to itself, Mercury being opposite his Saturn Neptune conjunction and progressed Mercury being conjunct his IC and square to his Mercury, and at the time the doctor was called, 9.30 am, the degree of his Sun was setting. We don't have a time for his operation but we know he left Downing Street at 7 am and there was an announcement at 12.15 that the procedure was over. The degree of his Sun, 15 Taurus, did set during the morning and it was this chart which I used. Mars is again a trigger, this time by trine perhaps showing the planned nature of the event. He is also experiencing another pass of Chiron to itself, this has been going on for sometime and this is just one of many events which would fit with this symbolism. For the operation, Uranus was also picking up his Mars and he will get another pass of this next year before Uranus clears the early Mutable degrees. What is worrying is that the eclipse coming up on 14th October will hit Blair right on his Neptune/ Saturn conjunction and Mercury will be at 27 of Capricorn, again aspecting his Mercury square MC/IC. Mercury is the ruler of Blair's chart but it is also the ruler of his sixth house. This may be a signature for someone with an underlying health problem. Given the eclipse in his sixth house and other contacts to the ruler of his sixth house we all agreed that not taking time off after his medical procedure could be very foolish. If he insists on striding around the globe then he may not do himself any favours in terms of his health. The Saturn transit to his IC is perfect for someone who has just bought a very large house, however, if I had a Saturn ruled MC and it was transiting my IC and I lived above the shop I might start to worry.

We also looked at Gordon Brown. He has a chart with an astonishing amount of 12th house Pisces planets and Neptune conjunct the Descendant. This would fit well with the perception of him as the power behind the throne and we all felt that there was much more going on than any of us would ever know about. His fine mind and dramatic presentation could be explained by Mercury in Aquarius opposite the Moon and Pluto in Leo. His Moon is very tightly opposite that of Tony Blair and they have both been experiencing the passage of Neptune to this point. Although we felt that Blair was in a precarious position we didn't think that Gordon was necessarily the person to take over. More charts need to be examined. Watch this space.

To finish we had a quick look at the charts of Bush and Kerry in the run up to the US Elections in November. Both have compelling transits, as does the USA itself, but the feeling was that it was too close to call. Possibly down to which was the wind was blowing on the day.

Claire Chandler

Lodge Lecture | Class | Charts Discussion