The Phenomenon of Winston Churchill's Chart

Birth

Winston Churchill was born November 30, 1874 at Blenheim Palace, England (UK) (51n51, 1w21). The time noted in the family bible was 1:30 am. It was a premature birth by six weeks or so, and he had red hair.

Source: Churchill, Walking with Destiny, by historian Andrew Roberts, 2018, Page 7.

See also Roden rating A, located here: https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Churchill,_Winston

Let’s move ahead to some of the salient features of his chart. Many of these, especially all the bright star conjunctions of Sun and Moon and Mars and Jupiter and MC, are seldom found in the charts of the major players in history. And we begin with his closest aspect, Natal Sun septile (51°26’) his natal Mars.

What Is The Meaning of the Septile In Astrology?

In the book of Genesis the heavens and the earth were created in seven days. Clairvoyants tell us that in the energy field around each human being, there are seven major energy wheels or chakras. There are seven days in the week. For millennia the major suns in the Pleiades constellation were called the Seven Sisters. They are: Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope.

A Saturn cycle takes roughly seven years. Four of those make a Saturn Return, one of the most important cycles in human life. Seven is closely woven into the definitions of time.

So why is the use of seven almost nonexistent in Western astrology?

The septile in astrology is an aspect derived from the whole number seven (7). All the major aspects in the chart employ whole numbers. For example, the square is calculated by dividing the 360° circle by the whole number four (4), getting 90°. The opposition is 360° divided by the number two (2), getting 180°. The septile is gotten by dividing the 360°circle by the number seven (7), getting 51° 26′. It is not a clear number like 90 or 45 or 120. It is 51° and almost a half, therefore tricky, often thrown away. Yet the septile, based on a whole number is a major aspect like the square or opposition.

The septile is the aspect of creation. It brings something new into the world. It denotes mastery.

Any exact or partile aspect shows a dominant theme in your life. Defined by the value of the planets involved, the septile can impart genius. It often denotes a mastery of the energies of whatever those planets involve, and there is an impetus in the septile to make things happen. Often the septile-born are touched by a Higher Power.

George Washington had the bi-septile (2/7ths) of Mars in his 7^th House in Scorpio to his Sun in Pisces In his 11^th House. It conferred upon him a mastery of war; it gave him the ability to defeat the most powerful army in the world. It also conferred on him the ability to build a free republic based on the “laws of nature”, moral law, consent of the governed, separation of powers, etc. And the system of government he helped to design would endure for centuries. It would transform the history of the world.

What is created under the influence of the septile is long lasting. The septile-born can alter civilizations. Thomas Edison created a durable light bulb that illumined houses and cities and eventually the world. More importantly, he designed and built the world’s first electric grid. These creations and numerous others derived from that remarkable mind transformed civilization.

Sometimes, as in Winston Churchill’s life, the septile-born are civilization’s saviors. As Mars rules courage, the septile connection to his Sun gave him unending courage.

Churchill’s Mars septile Sun conferred on him the ability to understand and master war. In childhood, his toys were metal soldiers, not just a few, but hundreds, thousands all laid out on trestle tables, lined up in opposing battle formations, and they included the accoutrements of artillery and cavalry. He would refight old battles of European wars, especially Napoleon’s.

In the schools he attended his grades were recorded as being in the upper half to upper one third of his classes; but his good grades were obscured by his attitude towards his teachers which was stubborn, talking-back, and a resistance to discipline. His early school experiences were not good.

When he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, everything fell into place, and he felt quite at home and graduated 20^th out of a class of 130. He served in combat: In Cuba, in Afghanistan, on the Nile River at Khartoum, in South Africa in Pretoria, where he was captured and escaped, and in the First World War when for six months as a Lieutenant Colonel serving in France in the trenches, and in Second World War where he was under fire briefly during visits to the front (especially in Italy in 1944), and in London, where he observed the Blitz from the rooftops.

He described war as:

The story of the human race is War. Except for brief and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world; and before history began murderous strife was universal and unending….which like planetary bodies could not approach each other in space without giving rise to profound magnetic reactions. If they got too near, the lightenings would begin to flash, and beyond a certain point they might be attracted altogether from the orbits in which they were restrained and draw each other into dire collision. From The World Crisis, Volume 1 `

From a battle scene in Khartoum

‘I found myself surrounded by what seemed to be dozens of men,’ he recalled. Straight before me a man threw himself on the ground . . . I saw the gleam of his curved sword as he drew it back for a ham-stringing cut [to Churchill’s horse’s legs]. I had room and time enough to turn my pony out of his reach, and leaning over the offside I fired two shots into him at about three yards. As I straightened myself in the saddle, I saw before me another figure with uplifted sword. I raised my pistol and fired. So close were we that the pistol itself actually struck him. Man and sword disappeared below and behind me. On my left, ten yards away, was an Arab horseman in a bright-coloured tunic and steel helmet, with chain-mail hangings. I fired at him. He turned aside.

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (pp. 57-58). Penguin Publishing Group.

In order to understand more clearly Churchill’s chart we need to understand some of his most important aspects, all of which are close to partile:

His Mars septile Sun
His Pluto bi quintile (144°) Mars
His moon trine Neptune-
His Sun octile (45°) Jupiter
Orion on his MC, and its alpha star, Betelgeuse, which was conjunct his MC.
His Sun sextile Saturn which conferred on him administrative genius.
The influence of his bright star conjunctions.

There is no way in astrology to explain the type of enhanced energy Churchill brought to every achievement, every success in war and diplomacy, in public speaking, which constituted some of the most moving oratory of his age, and even in the production of some of the best history of the 20^th Century.

The meaning of these aspects can never be clear without discussing the bright stars that attend his planets and luminaries.

How do the Bright Stars Work?

The influence of the bright stars is mostly forgotten in astrology. This study includes Arcturus, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Regulus, Antares, and Aldebaran. They are suns, located in our sky at relatively fixed positions, as discovered by the ancient Greek astrologer Hipparchus. This means that they move, but much slower than planets and the Sun and Moon. When Churchill was born in 1874, the bright star Arcturus was located at 22° Libra 29’; today in 2024 it has moved all the way to 24° Libra 14’. In 1066 AD, Sirius was at 1° 36’ Cancer; presently in 2024, it has moved all the way up to 14° Cancer: It took roughly a thousand years to get there.

Bright star energies act as a constant influence on the planets, luminaries, Asc and MC which they conjunct. The orb of their influence can measure two or three degrees either way. They exert influence on every expression of life. They enhance the energy of whatever solar system body they touch. To that body they enfold they will often add a spiritual energy. Sometimes this is defined by the manifestations of genius. In conjunction, and sometimes in opposition, they will draw forth the highest qualities of spiritual and mental gifts that may just be forming in the unconscious. The bright star influence will push them out and develop them to a high degree.

The Angelic Cross in Astrology

The Angelic Cross has been observed for millennia by astrologers of civilizations known and by those mostly forgotten. The stars of the Angelic Cross are Antares, Aldebaran, Regulus and Formalhaut. The radiations of Antares and Aldebaran, and Regulus and Formalhaut are some of the most powerful. Thus their energies are even more powerful as they influence individual points in a chart. When a person has luminaries or planets or the ascendant or mid-heaven conjunct a star of the angelic cross it raises its power exponentially. If that person is a player in history, a king, a prime minister, a president, a tyrant, a general, he or she will have the power to effect move in an entire civilization in a direction no one dreamed of.

A spiritual dimension is opened by the star, which applies to and works on their minds and actions. Even if they have one planet conjunct an angelic star, the power of that planet will be enhanced enormously, often in ways that no one could ever dream of. A trite phrase for this kind of genius is “thinking out of the box”. And unsolvable problems are solved. The impossible is made to happen through the development of a new ways of doing things. This is when the heavens reach down into our Earth, Sun, and solar system and readjust things, and, in their highest manifestation, urge people and civilizations to conform to the Way, the Tao, to natural law. And the energy from the stars of the angelic cross will, in a context of free will, always give to human beings a way to produce balance, to reach, as it were, Aristotle’s Golden Mean.

The angelic star Aldebaran, along with a Pluto Neptune synod was conjunct America’s natal Uranus in the 1890’s. The inventions that came through Edison’s and Tesla’s minds and others like them, were transformative, in effect giving people more freedom than they ever had before. The ancient Sumerian name for Aldebaran was the Bringer of Light. Many of the leaders who were born then, or who came into the adult world, will be remembered for millennia. Many of them would become prominent in World War II.

Astrological Influence of Aldebaran

Aldebaran is a bright star that exerts a beneficent influence on humankind. In the golden ages it was celebrated as a strengthening, health-giving influence. Miracles are seen in light. The Aldebaran influence brings the light into your consciousness. It gives enormous energy wherever placed. Placed in his 9^th House and opposed Churchill’s natal Sun that energy added a philosophical bent to his writing of history. He was never content to delineate just the bare facts. They required meaning, deep and eternal.

Aldebaran is the Watcher of the East. It opens the honorable path to greatness. Its energies combine with the Sun in Churchill’s case to take him through many life situations. Some are tests of his integrity: Will he hold to his truth? to what is right?

At that time, he was 17 years old, he had a visionary dream covering all these possibilities. He understood some of it, and the rest of the vision unfolded itself as he moved out into the world and applied his gifts to the situations at hand.

In Churchill’s case, he employed the entire energies of the Aldebaran-Antares polarity. The seal was broken when Pluto/Neptune synod conjoined the bright star Aldebaran and opposed his natal Sun/Antares. Some historians call this pronoia, a classical Greek word for foreknowledge, foresight.

On a Sunday evening in July 1891, in a basement room of Dr Welldon’s house after evensong in chapel, he was discussing his life plans with his friend Murland Evans.

‘‘I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world,” Churchill told Evans, “great upheavals, terrible struggles; wars such as one cannot imagine; and I tell you London will be in danger – London will be attacked and I shall be very prominent in the defence of London. I see further ahead than you do. I see into the future. This country will be subjected somehow, to a tremendous invasion, by what means I do not know, but I tell you I shall be in command of the defences of London and I shall save London and England from disaster . . . dreams of the future are blurred but the main objective is clear. I repeat – London will be in danger and in the high position I shall occupy, it will fall to me to save the capital and save the Empire.”

from Martin Gilbert, Search p. 215

The Orion Constellation in Astrology

At Churchill’s birth the constellation Orion stretched over the top of his chart. Its Alpha star, Betelgeuse, was conjunct his MC. This star also sat at the mid-point of his Moon/Regulus trine Neptune.

The Orion constellation has been called the warrior, the hunter, the hero, the giant.

The influence of the constellation Orion is deeply embedded in the human story going back thousands of years. It symbolizes a birth or rebirth of powerful individuality. In seeking the One, and individual must open himself to that which is called God. When this is achieved, as with Moses as described in the Torah, the individual becomes a radiant being, a guide, sometimes a warrior, often times a savior of a village, a city, a civilization. These radiant beings are almost always seen at the birth of a new civilization. Thus it was with Israel and Moses, and Rome which had two such radiant beings, Romulus and Rome’s second king, Numa Pompilius, who gave the early Romans cultural and spiritual teaching some of which lasts to this day in our laws.

Orion and Churchill

Churchill loved the Orion Constellation. He maintained that it saved him a number of times. The historical record seems to confirm this:

In Pretoria, having just escaped from the enemy jail.

Having waited as long as he could, Churchill walked through the Boer capital at night, intending to make his way to neutral Portuguese East Africa (modern-day Mozambique). He had to cross 300 miles of enemy territory with no map, compass, food, money, firearm or knowledge of Afrikaans. The lack of a compass did not seem to concern him, as he would orient himself by the stars, one star in particular. ‘Orion shone brightly,’ he later recalled. ‘Scarcely a year before he had guided me when lost in the desert to the banks of the Nile. He had given me water. Now he should lead me to freedom.’

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (p. 69). Penguin Publishing Group

In Egypt, lost in the desert

Churchill spent a miserable night without food or water lost in the desert in mid-August when he got separated from the convoy. He wandered for 70 miles before finding it again through the use of ‘the glorious constellation of Orion. Never did the giant look more splendid,’ he later wrote. It had directed him towards the Nile, and probably saved his life.

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (p. 55). Penguin Publishing Group.

Regulus In Astrology

In Churchill’s chart the bright star Regulus which conjoined his Moon enormously enhanced his memory giving him the ability to remember long stanzas of poetry and Shakespeare and speeches in parliament. In public school at Harrow he was awarded the prize for reciting Thomas Babington Macaulay’s complete Lays of Ancient Rome making not one mistake. He could recite speeches given forty years previously in Parliament. The star Regulus on his Moon gave him a magical gift of oratory with which he would influence millions of people. Regulus is an angelic cross star; it inferred lavish gifts; in the middle of the worst crisis of his life, it gave him the inspiration for his watercolor painting. That this bright star sat on the 12^th House cusp with his Moon gave him the ability to see things to which others were blind. It conferred on him prescience, it added to his pronoia. In addition, I believe, it conferred on him the enormous strength to resist the effects of alcohol.

He was born into a family (ruled by the Moon) that had achieved glory, riches and power for generations (Regulus). He was born at Blenheim Palace, the largest palace in Great Britain. He was the grandson of a duke (Regulus).

The exact trine of Regulus/Moon to Neptune in his 8th House gave him a natural death in old age. It ruled also the gift for water color painting that he began developing in 1915.

On his marriage day, September 12, 1908, transiting Jupiter was conjunct that Moon Regulus. Reading through the decades of correspondence with his wife, Clementine, it is easy to assume that it was a relationship with all its problems and anguishes of wonderful partnership and love.

Antares, the Watcher of the West

Antares was conjunct Churchill’s Sun.

Antares is the alpha star of the constellation of Scorpio (though at birth it was in in astrological Sagittarius at 8°).

It gives success in war. It gives a person the ability to swiftly make life and death decisions, and more often than not they will be right ones. It is a binary star, so its function will work better when in relationship, which was mostly with his wife Clementine, but also many others like his Secretary Eddie Marsh who was with him for 40 years, and in World War I with Jack Fischer, who was with him at the Admiralty, and then later with Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister, and in the Second World War with his general staff, especially Alan Brooke, whose recommendations he always followed, and with President Roosevelt and Roosevelt’s assistant, Harry Hopkins.

In battle, the influence of Antares works best when it takes a stand for the truth. Thus, Churchill against Hitler. Churchill finally unifying his Sun/life-purpose with the angelic energy of Antares became the Watcher of the West, in the 1930’s, when under the life cleansing influence and fashioning of Antares, he had fallen from power, only allowed to give warnings to the West, then in the late 30’s and into the1940’s, open now to the full power of the star, he rose to exercise the highest powers in war, and leading the British Empire, became a savior of humanity. And all the fame and success and riches came to him. Many contempories and many since have stated that no one could have handled the energies of war and alliance as he did, and that no one could have gathered together the forces that destroyed the greatest evil ever to rise in modern times.

Arcturus in Astrology

In ancient Sumer this was called the star of Enlil, the God of all. Edgar Cayce in deep trance stated that beings of the civilizations that live in or on planetary bodies around this star govern our Milky Way galaxy, and that they have a direct influence on our solar system. The Jupiter Arcturus conjunction influence on Churchill made up his true religion. It was his connection to a higher power. He was one of the most moral men of his time (morality as defined by Aristotle, Dante, Jefferson and Madison, C.S. Lewis and others). That the energy of this bright star enfolded his Jupiter conferred many gifts: ultimately he was given a balancing power of Justice, which he applied to the Third Reich, and it conferred on him protection in war. In all his conflicts he was never wounded by arrow or bullet or artillery shell; later in life, it conferred on him great wealth. Jupiter/Arcturus inspired him to stay grounded in the truth of things, which he always held to, even during the periods when he was ignored by his contemporaries as someone whose time was past. It conferred upon him the touch of the goddess Fortuna, as in Pretoria, when as an escaped prisoner of war, he found his path to safety through 400 miles of enemy territory.

Saying it again:

These bright stars in conjunction with natal planets bring out the highest qualities of the planetary energy, and then they add something of their own. They confer spiritual, psychic and mind gifts that may be just forming in the unconscious, but are now brought out to the foreground and developed to a very high degree. They fashion and define genius.

In world affairs, Arcturus has always ruled foreign affairs and navies. Arcturus gave him a natural affinity for naval warfare.

On 24 October 1911, Prime Minister Asquith announced that Churchill had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. His Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and other members in the cabinet were deeply worried about the threat coming out of Europe from the Prussian worship of war that gripped the German Empire. The cabinet had little trust that, if war came, the Admiralty could defend the British Empire. It was full of ossified, bureaucratic admirals. At age 37, they dropped a young lion into the Admiralty, and in a little under three years, after many firings, resignations, and new appointments, and after stepping on many toes and ruffling many feathers causing much enmity among the elites of the day, he had created a navy ready for the coming war. It would blockade Germany for the entire war causing it great distress by denying it food and other imports. In addition he created a naval air force and the first aircraft carrier. And he created a weapon, the tank that could withstand machine gun fire and could roll over barbed wire. It was his impetus and development that led to the insertion of a tank force that began overrunning the German trenches in 1917 and 1918.

The Bright Star Sirius in Astrology

While the bright star Sirius does not make a conjunction to any planet or luminary in his chart, I am discussing it because it is one of the most powerful influences anywhere in astrological prognostication. It is the closest bright star to our world, it is the brightest star by far in our sky, and even under certain climate conditions can be viewed during the day. Further it has a powerful connection to the mathematics found in the measurements of the Great Pyramid. Astronomers tell us that Sirius will be exerting its influence for the next 200,000 years.

I am including it here because Sirius sits in Churchill’s 10^th House and is conjunct the Sun of America’s Declaration Chart, and in the 1066 chart (December 25, 1066, noon, London) it opposes its New Moon conjunction. The Sirius connection helps to explain the unique and powerful relationship that Churchill developed with President Roosevelt. This was a unique relationship not experienced before or after in American history. We find that the Sun/Sirius helped enormously to win the war.

Its Meaning

The kernel of its influence is to exert dominion under natural law and under eternal law. Its power can work at many levels. It is a vitalizing influence for all things that grow; this is how the ancient Egyptians incorporated its energies into their agriculture and land management.

It will confer great power upon a person, a nation, any group that seeks to co-create with a higher power. But it must be employed under natural law and under eternal law. If it is used within the Tao, the Way, it will bring enormous success. Its influence also works to make an individual function as a better person, but again the strength and power it gives must be applied in accordance with eternal law. Its lessons can be hard and that person may not feel so good while learning to function under its influence. If misused a little, it brings on suffering; if misused continuously, its energies can bring on madness, dissolution. This principle applies as much to individuals as to nations.

Sirius confers dominion; it confers dominion over all living things. Formerly, at the entrance of mankind into the earth plane, man was given dominion over animals and plants. This dominion was pure and strong at that time. Man could talk to animals, and they could communicate with him. The influence of Sirius enhanced this communication, and it ushered in a Golden Age.

Sirius located in the chart of the founding of a nation can instill a longevity and power into that nation that will last for centuries. If its influence is prominent in the founding of a people, and if that people are obedient to natural and eternal law, it can last for thousands of years.

The Chart of the Founding of England

Sirius was present by opposition to the Sun/Moon of the founding of England (December25, 1066, London). That kingdom was made up of a king, warrior nobles and priests. While warlike, they were deeply spiritual, and the power and dominion grew, until its empire now ruled on every livable continent in the world. In the German Wars the outcome was that this dominion ended. But the seed of Sirius was not thrown away; Churchill preserved that.

America’s Sirius Sun

America was born with Sirius conjunct its Sun. Here the seed was watered with obedience to natural and eternal law, and it grew to be the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. America in some form will remain around for centuries.

Sirius makes things grow. It made Egypt grow. It was not only the crops, the bountiful harvest from the Nile. It grew in power for millennia, and for millennia no nation overcame it.

Sirius conferred protection. The Nile supplied nutrients and water for food. And its bounty was more or less constant. For the Egyptians, unlike every other major civilization, did not have to depend for rainfall to grow crops.

Sirius close by

Sirius is the closest bright star and by far the largest bright star in the firmament. The name of the star comes from the Greek, seirios, meaning scorching or bright. Other civilizations give it different names.

It is a binary star, and the sun that orbits it, Sirius B, is roughly the size of earth.

This diagram shows the venting system, the shafts that lead deep into the interior of the Great Pyramid. Possibly the shafts were meant to keep the interior rooms at 68° Fahrenheit. But why were these shafts pointed to certain bright stars? And why was one of them pointed directly to Sirius? That it was pointed to Sirius makes the Great Pyramid, and all its mathematical measurements and meanings makes it the earliest astrological statement we possess. Yet this astrological/astronomical connection to Sirius is possibly more advanced than anything we have today. We can draw one conclusion. Sirius is and has been for thousands of years, one of the most important players in astrology.

Like the influence of all the bright stars, this one enhances the strength and power of whatever it enfolds.

In historical astrology, it can rule dominion.

In England, it exactly opposed the Sun/Moon conjunction in Capricorn.

This opposition gave England the power of dominion. William’s reign began by creating a realm that included half of France and all of England. The size of this realm shrank over the years back to England. But over the centuries England would become the British Empire, and it would exert dominion over much of the planet.

In America, using the chart for July 4, 1776, we find a Sun/Sirius conjunction. A hundred and twenty eight years after George Washington was sworn in in 1790 as president, in 1919 America participated as a principal in the Versailles Conference where a Treaty of Peace between Germany and the allies was signed in a place fittingly called the Hall of Mirrors. By 1945, America, after having helping out the betrayed Armistice of 1919, had become the most powerful nation in the world.

Statesmen in history whose planets or luminaries are conjunct or opposed by Sirius will have unique lives.

Astrological Betelgeuse On Churchill’s MC

The alpha bright star Betelgeuse confers a great power for putting plans into action. It sits in the shoulder socket of the right arm of The Giant. Actions begun are carried out successfully because the initiator of the plan sees before, then in the midst of action, and also what is coming ahead. Some call this prescience; we call it pronoia, which this star can contribute to. It is the quality Themistocles applied when he helped the Greeks to win the Persian War.

Many succeed, some fail. We live in a free will universe. Winston Churchill’s right shoulder was wrenched an overpowering force he could not control. It prohibited him from playing tennis, or fencing, and limited him in his polo sport. This bright star, located in astrological Gemini, also gave him a deep spiritual power of writing and reading. That Betelgeuse sat on the mid-point between his Moon and Neptune gave him the impetus not only to write history (the Moon, remembering the past), but it added a deep spiritual understanding of the events he recreated for his readers (the Neptune).

Yet sometimes a career is derailed by this power that is beyond one’s ability to control. Thus, what happened in the Dardanelles disaster in the First World War, which I will discuss later. And in the 1930’s the refusal for six years by those in power to listen to his warnings about the renewal of the German Wars by Adolph Hitler. In most of the 30’s his peers refused to place Churchill in any cabinet position. This all has to do with the powerful influence of Betelgeuse. Its power is sometimes wrenched away, as when on that day in Parliament he suddenly completely forgot his speech and had to sit down in confusion. Its influence can act as a tempering loss. It made him grow stronger and more grounded. He determined always thenceforth to have his speeches typed out.

After the severe loss of the Dardanelles for which he initially received most of the blame, when he was dismissed as First Lord of the Admiralty, his sister-in-law suggested that he learn to paint in water colors. Here he was given healing by applying the Moon-Betelgeuse-Neptune energy in a new way. Painting became a meditation, a healing influence; his mind found a deep calm which he drew upon for the rest of his life. His spirit was renewed, his physical energies regenerated. And he achieved a high proficiency in this art.

As we have mentioned, there are times whenthis power is withdrawn, as it seems to be renewing itself. All the brilliant thoughts, the ability to handle a hundred different problems at once is gone. People with this ability must be patient; it will come back, as it did with Churchill when he was destroying the German religion of war and its high priest, Adolph Hitler.

Let’s move ahead to some of the salient features of his chart. And we begin with his closest aspect, Natal Sun septile (51°26’) his natal Mars.

What Is The Septile In Astrology?

A Saturn cycle takes roughly seven years. Four of those make a Saturn Return, one of the most important cycles in human life. Seven is closely woven into the definition of time.

So why is the use of seven almost nonexistent in Western astrology?

The septile in astrology is an aspect derived from the whole number seven (7). All the major aspects in the chart employ whole numbers. For example, the square is calculated by dividing the 360° circle by the whole number four (4), getting 90°. The opposition is 360° divided by the number two (2), getting 180°. The septile is gotten by dividing the 360°circle by the number seven (7), getting 51° 26′. The septile is a major aspect like the square or opposition.

The septile is the aspect of creation. It brings something new into the world. It denotes mastery.

George Washington had the bi-septile (2/7ths) of Mars in his 7^th House in Scorpio to his Sun in Pisces In his 11^th House. It conferred upon him a mastery of war; it gave him the ability to defeat the most powerful army in the world. It also conferred on him the ability to build a free republic based on the rule of law, and nature’s laws, consent of the governed, and separation of powers. And the system of government he helped to design would endure for centuries. It would transform the history of the world.

What is created under the influence of the septile is long lasting. The septile-born can alter civilizations. Thomas Edison created a durable light bulb that illumined houses and cities and continents. More importantly, he designed and built the world’s first electric grid. These creations and numerous others from that remarkable mind transformed civilization.

Sometimes, as in Winston Churchill’s life, the septile-born are civilization’s saviors. As Mars rules courage, the septile connection to his Sun gave him unending courage.

In the schools he attended his grades were in the upper half to upper one third of his class; but this was obscured by his attitude towards his teachers which was stubborn, talking-back, and a resistance to discipline. His early school experiences were not good.

He described war as:

From a battle scene in Khartoum

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (pp. 57-58). Penguin Publishing Group.

In order to understand more clearly Churchill’s chart we need to understand five of his most important aspects, all of which are close to partile:

His Mars septile Sun
His Pluto bi quintile (144°) Mars
His moon trine Neptune-
His Sun octile (45°) Jupiter
Orion on his MC, and its alpha star, Betelgeuse, which was conjunct his MC.
His Sun sextile Saturn conferred on him administrative genius.
The influence of his bright star conjunctions.

The meaning of these aspects can never be clear without discussing the bright stars that attend his planets and luminaries.

What Are the Bright Stars?

Bright star energies act as a constant influence on the planets and luminaries which they conjunct. The orb of their influence can measure two or three degrees either way. They exert influence on every expression of life. They enhance the energy of whatever solar system body they touch. To that body they enfold they will often add a spiritual energy: Sometimes this is defined by the manifestations of genius. In conjunction, and sometimes in opposition, they will draw forth the highest qualities of spiritual and mental gifts that may just be forming in the unconscious. The bright star influence will push them out and develop them to a high degree.

The Angelic Cross

The Angelic Cross has been observed for millennia by astrologers of civilizations known and by those long forgotten. The stars of the Angelic Cross are Antares, Aldebaran, Regulus and Formalhaut. The radiations of Antares and Aldebaran, and Regulus and Formalhaut are some of the most powerful. Thus their energies are even more powerful as they influence individual points in a chart. When a person has luminaries or planets or the ascendant or mid-heaven conjunct a star of the angelic cross it raises its power exponentially. If that person is a player in history, a king, a prime minister, a president, a tyrant, a general, he or she will have the power to effect change in an entire civilization.

The angelic star Aldebaran, along with a Pluto Neptune synod was conjunct America’s natal Uranus in the 1890’s. The inventions that came through Edison’s mind and others like him, like the electric grid (Edison) and alternating current (Tesla), were transformative, in effect giving people more freedom than they ever had before. The ancient Sumerian name for Aldebaran was the Bringer of Light. Many of the leaders who were born then, or who came into the adult world, will be remembered for millennia. Many of them would become prominent in World War II.

More on Aldebaran

Aldebaran is the Watcher of the East. It shows the honorable path to greatness. Its energies combine with the Sun in Churchill’s case to take him through many life situations. Some are tests of his integrity: Will he hold to his truth to what is right.

On a Sunday evening in July 1891, in a basement room of Dr Welldon’s house after evensong in chapel, he was discussing his life plans with his friend Murland Evans.

from Martin Gilbert, Search p. 215

The Orion Constellation

The Orion constellation has been called the warrior, the hunter, the hero, the giant.

Orion and Churchill

Churchill loved the Orion Constellation. He maintained that it saved him a number of times. The historical record seems to confirm this:

In Pretoria, having just escaped from the enemy jail.

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (p. 69). Penguin Publishing Group

In Egypt, lost in the desert

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (p. 55). Penguin Publishing Group.

Regulus

In Churchill’s chart the bright star Regulus which conjoined his Moon enormously enhanced his memory giving him the ability to remember long stanzas of poetry and Shakespeare and speeches in parliament. In public school at Harrow he was awarded the prize for reciting Thomas Babington Macaulay’s complete Lays of Ancient Rome making not one mistake. He could recite speeches given forty years previously in Parliament. The star Regulus on his Moon gave him a magical gift of oratory with which he would influence millions of people. Regulus is an angelic cross star; it inferred lavish gifts; in the middle of the worst crisis of his life, it gave him the inspiration for his watercolor painting. That this bright star sat on the 12^th House cusp with his Moon gave him the ability to see things to which others were blind. It conferred on him prescience. In addition, I believe, it conferred on him the enormous strength to resist the effects of alcohol.

He was born into a family (the Moon) that had achieved glory, riches and power for generations (Regulus). He was born at Blenheim Palace, the largest palace in Great Britain. He was the grandson of a duke (Regulus).

The exact trine of Regulus/Moon to Neptune in his 8th House gave him a natural death in old age. It ruled also the gift for water color painting that he began developing in 1915.

Antares, the Watcher of the West

Antares was conjunct Churchill’s Sun.

Antares is the alpha star of the constellation of Scorpio (though at birth it was in in astrological Sagittarius at 8°).

It gives success in war. It gives a person the ability to swiftly make life and death decisions, and more often than not they will be right ones. It is a binary star, so its function will work better when in relationship, which was mostly his wife Clementine, but also his Secretary Eddie Marsh who was with him for 40 years, and in World War I with Jack Fischer, who was with him at the Admiralty, and then later with Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister, and in the Second World War with his general staff, especially Alan Brooke, whose recommendations he always followed, and with President Roosevelt and Roosevelt’s assistant, Harry Hopkins.

In battle, the influence of Antares works best when it takes a stand for the truth. Thus Churchill against Hitler. Churchill finally unifying his Sun/life-purpose with the angelic energy of Antares became the Watcher of the West, in the 1930’s, when under the life cleansing influence and fashioning of Antares, he had fallen from power, only allowed to give warnings to the West, then in the late 30’s and into the1940’s, open now to the full power of the star, he rose to exercise the highest powers in war, and leading the British Empire, became a savior of humanity. And all the fame and success and riches came to him. Many contempories and many since have stated that no one could have handled the energies of war and alliance as he did, and that no one could have gathered together the forces that destroyed the greatest evil ever to rise in modern times.

Arcturus

In ancient Sumer this was the star of Enlil, the god of all. Edgar Cayce in deep trance stated that beings of the civilizations that live in or on planetary bodies around this star govern our Milky Way galaxy, and that they have a direct influence on our solar system. The Jupiter Arcturus conjunction influence on Churchill made up his true religion. It was his connection to a higher power. That its energy enfolded his Jupiter conferred many gifts: ultimately he was given a balancing power, that is, to balance the entire world, as he did against the Third Reich, and it conferred protection in war. In all his conflicts he was never wounded by arrow or bullet or artillery shell; later in life, it conferred on him great wealth. Jupiter/Arcturus inspired him to stay grounded in the truth of things, which he always held to, even during the periods when he was ignored by his contemporaries as someone whose time was past. It conferred upon him the touch of the goddess Fortuna, as in Pretoria, when as an escaped prisoner of war, he found his path to safety through 400 miles of enemy territory.

Saying it again:

In world affairs, Arcturus has always ruled foreign affairs and navies. Arcturus gave him a natural affinity for naval warfare.

On 24 October 1911, Prime Minister Asquith announced that Churchill had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. His Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and other members in the cabinet were deeply worried about the threat coming out of Europe from the German Empire. The cabinet had little trust that, if war came, the Admiralty could defend the British Empire. It was full of ossified, bureaucratic admirals. At age 37, they dropped a young lion into the Admiralty, and in a little under three years, after many firings, resignations, and new appointments, and after stepping on many toes and ruffling many feathers causing much enmity among the elites of the day, he had created a navy ready for the coming war. It would blockade Germany for the entire war causing it great distress by denying it food and other imports. In addition he created a naval air force and the first aircraft carrier. And he created a weapon, the tank that could withstand machine gun fire and could roll over barbed wire. It was his impetus and development that led to the insertion of a tank force that began overrunning the German trenches in 1917 and 1918.

The Bright Star Sirius

While the bright star Sirius does not make a conjunction to any planet or luminary in his chart, I am discussing it because it is one of the most powerful influences anywhere in astrological prognostication. It is the closest bright star to our world, it is the brightest star by far in our sky, and even under certain conditions can be viewed during the day. Further it has a powerful connection to the mathematics found in the measurements of the Great Pyramid. Astronomers tell us that Sirius will be exerting its influence for the next 200,000 years.

I am including it here because Sirius sits in Churchill’s 10^th House and is conjunct the Sun of America’s Declaration Chart, and in the 1066 chart (December 25, 1066, noon, London) it opposes its New Moon conjunction. The Sirius connection helps to explain the unique and powerful relationship that Churchill developed with President Roosevelt. This was a unique relationship not experienced before in American history. We find that the Sun/Sirius helped enormously to win the war.

Its Meaning

The kernel of its influence is to exert dominion under natural lawand under eternal law. Its power can work at many levels. It is a vitalizing influence for all things that grow; this is how the ancient Egyptians incorporated its energies into their agriculture and land management.

It will confer great power upon a person, a nation, any group that desires to co-create with a higher power. But it must be employed under natural law and under eternal law. If it is used within the Tao, the Way, it will bring enormous success. Its influence also works to make an individual function as a better person, but again the strength and power it gives must be applied in accordance with eternal law. Its lessons can be hard and that person may not feel so good while learning to function under its influence. If misused a little, it brings on suffering; if misused continuously, its energies can bring on madness, dissolution. This principle applies as much to individuals as to nations.

The Chart of William’s Coronation

America’s Sirius Sun

Sirius makes things grow. It made Egypt grow. It was not only the crops, the bountiful harvest from the Nile. It grew in power for millennia, and for millennia no nation overcame it.

Sirius close by

It is a binary star, and the sun that orbits it, Sirius B, is roughly the size of earth.

This diagram shows the venting system, the shafts that lead deep into the interior of the Great Pyramid. Possibly the shafts are meant to keep the interior rooms at 68° Fahrenheit. But why are these shafts pointed to certain bright stars? And why is one of them pointed directly to Sirius? That it is pointed to Sirius makes the Great Pyramid, and all its mathematical measurements and meanings makes it one of the earliest astrological statements we possess. Yet this astrological/astronomical connection to Sirius is possibly more advanced than anything we have today. We can draw one conclusion. Sirius is and has been for thousands of years, one of the most important players in astrology.

Like the influence of all the bright stars, this one enhances the strength and power of whatever it enfolds.

In historical astrology, it can rule dominion.

In England, it exactly opposed the Sun/Moon conjunction in Capricorn.

Statesmen in history whose planets or luminaries are conjunct or opposed by Sirius will have unique lives.

George W. Bush, the son, in his early years, was a rebel and an alcoholic. He had a Sun/Sirius conjunction in his 12^th House. He became deeply religious, dropped the alcoholism, and found in himself the drive and power to become president. At 911 he unified the country by his quasi-religious almost mystical speeches. Sirius energy enhances, intensifies everything it touches.

Betelgeuse On Churchill’s MC

The bright star Betelgeuse confers a great power for action. It sits in the shoulder socket of the right arm of The Giant. Actions begun are carried out. Many succeed, some fail. We live in a free will universe. Winston Churchill’s right shoulder was wrenched an overpowering force he could not control. It prohibited him from playing tennis, or fencing, and limited him in his polo sport. This bright star, located in astrological Gemini, also gave him a deep spiritual power of writing and reading. That Betelgeuse sat on the mid-point between his Moon and Neptune gave him the impetus not only to write history (the Moon), but it added a deep spiritual understanding of the events he recreated for his readers (the Neptune).

Yet sometimes a career is derailed by a power that is beyond one’s ability to control. Thus, the Dardanelles disaster in the First World War, which I will discuss later. And in the 1930’s the refusal for six years by those in power to listen to his warnings about the rising war machine being secretly developed by Adolph Hitler. In most of the 30’s his peers refused to place Churchill in any cabinet position. This all has to do with the powerful influence of Betelgeuse. Its power is sometimes wrenched away, as when on that day in Parliament he suddenly completely forgot his speech and had to sit down in confusion. Its influence can act as a tempering loss. It made him grow stronger and more grounded. He determined always thenceforth to have his speeches typed out.

The Great War

The Great War (August 3, 1914 –November 11, 1918) destroyed or altered every major nation in Europe. Germany started it, and it destroyed the German Empire. In Russia, which took part in the war on the side of France and Britain, bureaucratic mismanagement caused massive shortages of food leading to hunger and starvation, followed by rioting and anarchy. The centuries’ old rule of the Tsar collapsed. Nicholas the Second abdicated, and soon after, he and his entire family were murdered by the Bolsheviks. Hungary-Austria would similarly collapse. France was fighting the Germans with valor, but it experienced mutiny in its armies. After years of fighting, the soldiers refused to walk into machine gun fire and chew barbed wire. It was just pure slaughter. Why bother? It was an easier death before a firing squad. Following the war, France never seemed to recover from the exhaustion of those four years.

The Synod of Pluto/Neptune

This was a war like no other. Forty million people lost their lives. As many more were crippled, shell-shocked, blinded, and made unfit for any kind of work. It destroyed the elite rulership of every European nation. And this destruction would lead to even worse leadership in Russia and in Germany. France experienced muddle headed leadership, and when the Germans returned in May of 1940, they were able to overrun France in six weeks.

This destruction of the old Europe, which no one saw coming at the time, foreseen by almost no historian or statesman, was born out of the Neptune-Pluto synodic conjunction.

This Pluto-Neptune synod, at conjunction, signaled the end of an age lasting some five hundred years. And it announced the beginning of a new one. When Neptune moved ahead of transiting Pluto getting roughly to the 30° point (it would be exact in April 1917, when the Americans entered the war), a semi-sextile, the Great War began.

The Germans advanced into Belgium, then France, getting to within thirty miles of Paris, where the British and French met the Germans, almost surrounded one of its armies, causing Germany to retreat back into the North. This was the Battle of the Marne (Sept. 6-12, 1914). Saturn had moved up to conjunct Pluto (1°-2° Cancer). It was here that the Germans were stopped cold and were forced to retreat back to the Aisne River. A line of entrenchments, hundreds of miles long, was hastily constructed from Switzerland to the North Sea. The war would devolve into a stalemate called trench warfare; it is here that the Germans over a period of four years would lose three percent of their population that the British would suffer a million dead, and the French suffered even worse roughly with two million deaths.

It was a massive war that no one could stop, and that no one could fight very well. This was Plutonian war.

In Churchill’s words:

But the Great War owned no Master; no one was equal to its vast and novel issues; no human hand controlled its hurricanes; no eye could pierce its whirlwind dust-clouds.

Churchill, Winston, The World Crisis, 1915, Vol. 2

It was in this hurricane that Churchill would be tested by karma and iron fate. The pressures he and those around him labored under were enormous. And they were unending.

Appointed Lord of the Admiralty on Oct. 24, 1911, he was given nearly three years to prepare the British Navy for any eventuality. He carried out his duties with a thoroughness of detail that perhaps no one else was capable of. For example, from coal fired vessels he changed his ships to ones powered by oil. This change, which he had to fight for, had the advantage of increasing their speed by making them lighter. With oil as fuel, the navy could travel much longer distances without having to refuel.

He also went below decks, got to know his able seamen, discussed their needs, listened to their suggestions for greater efficiency, many of which he incorporated. He managed to get them a raise in pay. Morale improved.

In the two years and ten months that he was given to reform and improve the navy, he made it into the most powerful force that Britain had seen since Admiral Nelson. This accomplishment was helped by his Moon trine Neptune, but also by his Sun sextile Saturn, an indication of administrative genius.

REVIEW OF CHURCHILL’S NAVY RIGHT BEFORE THE WAR

The speed is raised to twenty knots. Streaks of white foam appear at the bows of every vessel. The land draws near. The broad bay already embraces this swiftly moving gigantic armada. The ships in their formation already fill the bay. The foreign officers I have with me on the Enchantress bridge stare anxiously. We still steam fast. Five minutes more and the van of the Fleet will be aground. Four minutes, three minutes. There! At last. The signal! A string of bright flags is hauled down from the Neptune’s halyards. Every anchor falls together; their cables roar through the hawser holes; every propeller whirls astern. In a hundred and fifty yards, it seems every ship is stationary. Look along the lines, miles this way and miles that, they might have been drawn with a ruler. The foreign observers gasped. These were great days.

From The World Crisis, 1911-1914

When the war began he transported the entire British Expeditionary Force to France without a single casualty. He also blockaded all German ports opening to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. This blockade had the effect of cutting off the import of supplies, especially food, to the German Empire. Within a few months in Germany rationing of food went into effect (Jan.1 1915, bread rationing was introduced in Germany (8 ounces per person). The food riots began in early 1918. The riots turned into anarchist revolution. Finally, with collapse of government at home, and consistent loss on the Front, the Germans requested an armistice, which meant an end to the fighting. Their first request in October 1918 was refused, but by November 11, 1918, an armistice was agreed to and the German War ended.

Antwerp, October 1914

Those who in years to come look back upon the first convulsions of this frightful epoch will find it easy with after knowledge and garnered experience to pass sagacious judgments on all that was done or left undone. There is always a strong case for doing nothing, especially for doing nothing yourself. But to the small group of Ministers who met that midnight in Lord Kitchener’s house, the duty of making sure that Antwerp was not cast away without good cause while the means of saving it might well be at hand was clear. I urged strongly that we should not give in without a struggle.
from the Great War, by Churchill

By the early months of the war, England and France were waging a furious kinetic war with Germany. The German objective, based on the Schlieffen Plan, which had been designed by a Prussian general of the same name in 1906, was to first invade and conquer Belgium and France, then take the war to Russia. According to this plan, the army would cut through Belgium, and then it would pour into France and end the war in a few weeks. The German General Staff was composed mostly of Prussians. Since the rule of Frederick the Great they had studied and trained for war. Prussian militarism was a kind of religion: Its general staff was a kind of Vatican. It trained soldiers that were the equivalent of the ancient Spartans. In the 19^th Century they were successful in their wars against Austria and Denmark. They easily defeated France in the Franco Prussian War (July 19 – May 10^th 1871). This action led them to believe France was weak enough to be overrun in a few weeks.

Previous to the Great War, German spies had studied the fortresses of Belgium. These forts had been constructed to be impregnable to artillery attack. German science designed newer artillery to cut through all the forts’ concrete and steel. When applied, it worked. The new artillery shells easily cut through the fortresses one after another.

Lord Kitchener, the general in charge of the British armies and who had long served in other campaigns in the British Empire, was shocked at the swiftness of the destruction of the forts. It meant that the Germans would be able to overwhelm France within within a very short time. He also understood that Churchill had a gift for war and for swift innovation in the middle of deep crisis. He asked Churchill to come to a meeting. Present were Lloyd George, at that time a high cabinet minister, and several others.

The question was, “What are we going to do?” The Germans had been stopped thirty miles outside of Paris, been pushed back into northern France. However, a new German army was pouring down from the north. It was still in Belgium, but not for long. At the same time the British army was moving in west France towards the coast. The goal of the French and British was to build a wall that would stretch from the North Sea to Switzerland. If the Germans were to thrust their army past the British defenses and move deeply into France, they could surround that wall, still being constructed, making it useless, and win the war. Incidentally, that wall as per all things in the new type of war being fought actually was a deep trench, defended by barbed wire, parapets, and machine guns.

The key here was holding the city of Antwerp in Belgium. Guarded by the weak Belgian Army, it was presently acting as a barrier to the German advance. Its leaders, including the mayor and the commanding military governor, had informed the British that they would be evacuating in twelve hours. That retreat meant that the way into France and victory was open to the Germans. Britain and France could lose the war.

“Let me go there,” volunteered Churchill. Lord Kitchener and Lloyd George assented.

He flew to Belgium, landed in Ostend and drove up to Antwerp. Arriving there, he informed the Belgians that Lord Kitchener would be providing 30,000 troops within a twenty four hour period, and that he himself as First Lord of the Admiralty would provide a further 10,000 naval troops.

Then, in effect, he took over command of the city, toured all its defenses, made suggestions for strengthening the defenses and generally stiffened their resolve. He was under fire often. He remained awake for three days. He gave the Belgians a new hope. Its army, along with the added British assistance, allowed them to resist the Germans for some seven to ten days. And the British army, commanded by Sir John French, reached the North Sea and sealed the wall. Churchill’s valor in exhibited a daimonic strength rarely seen in war. Antares ruled.

Early War for Churchill

Battles are won by slaughter and manœuvre. The greater the general, the more he contributes in manœuvre, the less he demands in slaughter. The theory which has exalted the ‘bataille d’usure’ or ‘battle of wearing down’ into a foremost position, is contradicted by history and would be repulsed by the greatest captains of the past. Nearly all the battles which are regarded as masterpieces of the military art, from which have been derived the foundation of states and the fame of commanders, have been battles of manœuvre. Churchill,
The World Crisis, Vol.2 1915

I am using two charts for the Great War. The first chart is cast for the de jure entrance by Britain into war with Germany.

Earlier, a twenty four hour ultimatum was wired to Germany stating that the British would be in a state of war with Germany, if it did not end its invasion of Belgium and withdraw all its armies. The Germans never bothered to reply, and at 11:00pm London time the British formally entered a state of war with Germany.

The closest and most powerful aspect in this chart is the Moon opposed Neptune, out of exact by 10 minutes. The Saturn-Moon inconjunct is exact, off by 33 minutes. Saturn is also exactly semi-sextile Neptune. The Saturn Pluto synodic conjunction rules the 7^th House, which is in Scorpio. Scorpio rules war; the 7^th house can rule the same. The force of karma (Saturn) and the implacable power of fate (Pluto) created a war that would move control of the war out of the hands of the belligerents.

Or as Churchill described it:

No splendid harmony was to crown the wonderful achievements. No prize was to reward the sacrifices of the combatants. Victory was to be bought so dear as to be almost indistinguishable from defeat. It was not to give even security to the victors. There never was to be ‘The silence following great words of Peace.’ To the convulsions of the struggle must succeed the impotent turmoil of the aftermath. Noble hopes, high comradeship and glorious daring were in every nation to lead only to disappointment, disillusion and prostration.

Churchill, Winston S.. The World Crisis, 1915

The leadership of the war, that is, the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith and his cabinet, were confronted by tests in the use of power that would destroy many of their careers. No one knew how to fight it. The pressure of this war would destroy empires and kings and leaders all over Europe. In four years the Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II, had abdicated; the Tsar of Russia was dead. The Emperor of Austria-Hungary abdicated. The Ottoman Empire was in tatters, many of its provinces to be divided at Versailles between the French and the English.

In England, its leadership, its processes of governing its empire with a very light touch, had led to a prosperous civilization around the world. As it was a maritime power, it had a large navy, and a small army. Their ruling elite were educated and trained for peace time governing.

England and France and Russia were now being attacked by a Germany dominated by those who made war a religion. Up to a point the Germans were good at it, but after the first 100,000 battle deaths, they realized their victories were just like defeats.

The question the Prime Minister and most of his Cabinet asked each other: “What do we do?”

These Moon-Neptune elites had no answers. They turned to the Army. The problem with the Army was that it was led by officers who since the conclusion of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, a hundred years previous, had never to fight in a major war. Any army under peace for a century easily becomes a gathering of ossified bureaucrats. For example, promotion comes, not by ability, but through seniority. To get promoted in this kind of army, one has to be patient. Being political also helps. Using family connections to get ahead was the norm. Those who demonstrate the war gift are often aggressive and pushy, and often crude, and they never “play the game”, obeying its unspoken rules.. They often do not get promoted. They always make the ossified uneasy; they are never popular.

Churchill had the war gift (Mars septile Sun-Antares). He could walk into any high stress situation, where no one knew what to do, and come up with solutions to the insolvable.

A few months into the war he was aware that the trench warfare developed in the Western Front had led to a deadly stalemate. The phrase “over the top” meant that the soldier would climb out of the trench, walk in loose formation with his companion soldiers and be ordered to attack barbed wire (it was called “chewing barbed wire”) and allow machine gun bullets to tear his body apart. For example, from August to December, 1914, the British Expeditionary Force lost 95,000 soldiers to barbed wire and machine guns.

The 1066 Founding of England Chart

The second chart I am using is the William the Conqueror chart, dated from Christmas Day, Dec 25, 1066 AD, London, 12:00 noon. I am using the Gregorian calendar as it is more accurate than the Julian. The Gregorian calendar places the Natal Sun of this chart three and a half degrees away from the Winter Solstice. This chart is in exact alignment with the Sun.

At the beginning of the Great War, transiting Pluto was exactly opposed the natal Moon of the 1066 chart; Pluto was a little over 2° in opposition to the natal Sun in this chart, and it still opposed the natal Uranus of this chart. It was also conjunct the bright star Sirius that opposed the Capricorn stellium. That bright star exactly opposes the Moon/Sun elements in the Capricorn stellium. Even if bright star oppositions are not supposed to work in astrology, the enfoldment of Pluto by Sirius would definitely enhance its energy.

Normally Mercury, Sun, Moon, Uranus conjunction and stellium in Capricorn is very powerful in itself. If bright star oppositions functions as influence, that Sirius is opposing so many elements in this chart, it would make it is one of the most powerful founding charts in history, and that it had been the source of British greatness for a thousand years.

On the day Britain entered this war transiting Pluto was exactly conjunct the Sirius of the 1066 chart and it was in close opposition to Sun and Uranus. By the middle of May 1915, transiting Saturn had moved up to join Sirius and Pluto. Thus, two outer planets in synodic conjunction, enfolded by the energy of bright star Sirius are opposing the Capricorn stellium that makes up the foundation chart of England.

Churchill understood the problem: The nation was faced with a war of slaughter. And no one knew what to do. He suggested an alternative.

The Dardanelles

The Dardanelles Campaign was Churchill’s plan of getting around the unending slaughter of trench warfare. One arm of this attempt was to employ the navy to open a path through the Dardanelles Strait (41 miles long), then entering the Sea of Mamara, which it fed into, wipe out the Turkish navy, and take the city of Constantinople. Moving through the Bosporus Strait, the navy would later control the Black Sea, thus being able to supply food and military aid to Russia. This move would allow the English and French armies to attack Germany from behind. It was a tactic meant to turn a war of slaughter into a war of maneuver. If it had been successful, it would have saved millions of lives. It might have ended the war much sooner.

It was a brilliant plan, and Prime Minister Asquith and the head of the Army, Lord Kitchener, and the entire cabinet supported and approved it.

The warships approved for this venture were composed of older battleships, now obsolete and scheduled to be dismantled for scrap. Two new battleships also would take part in the operation.

In the first phase of the attack the navy concentrated its armaments on the fortresses located at the mouth of the strait. And the long range artillery of the ships destroyed the Turkish forts whose canon were not able to return fire.

The next phase was to sweep the Dardanelles of all its mines.

Here the plan began to stumble. The mine sweepers chosen by the navy were basically civilian trawlers armed with no steel plating, no armor of any kind, and when the Turks on the shores began firing bullets right through their wooden walls, the crews complained that they had never signed up for that kind of service, and they turned their trawlers around and fled. So in effect the navy with the most powerful ships in the world had not provided armored mine sweepers to remove the three hundred and thirty Turkish mines floating in the Dardanelles Strait.

Then on March 18, six battleships, three British and three French, struck mines and sank. The navy fell into shock. There was a tradition in the navy dating back at least a hundred years. Never lose your ship. If that occurs you could be demoted, made to leave the navy, and possibly be disgraced for life. This tradition was strongly engraved in every naval officer. When the admiral in charge saw his expendable battleships being destroyed, he suddenly discovered all sorts of reasons to stop further advances into the strait. Most of his sub-ordinate officers supported him.

Churchill asked the Prime Minster to intervene and order the mine clearing and advance to continue. Up to now, Asquith had supported Churchill, but instead of giving that order, he convened a committee of admirals to get their input. Of course, they supported the admiral at the Dardanelles. The PM supported the admirals.

Thus Churchill’s orders were countermanded. There would be no advance of the navy.

When the Army landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25, 1915, the Turks with plenty of warnings. had been given a month to prepare, and they were well dug in and fortified. And they were led by a great Turkish general, Mustafa Kemal, later called Atatürk, or “father of his country”. It turns out that he was one of the most effective generals in the history of the Ottoman Empire.

The British campaign was led by second and third rate officers, who would fight the same kind of war as was being fought on the Western Front. It became the same old dismal war of slaughter.

In one battle an army was landed by the navy on the wrong shore and was torn to pieces by the waiting artillery and machine gun fire that the Turkish general had speedily brought up and emplaced..

Here is a description of another type of muddle:

At one of the beaches at Cape Helles, Y Beach, the soldiers landing there, who were more in number than the Turkish force then in the whole Cape Helles area, after landing unopposed, reached the cliff-top above the beach without incident. There they found no Turks at all in front of them, but their message asking what to do next was never answered. Instead of moving inland, unopposed, they waited. Then, after twelve hours, Turkish troops arrived. The British drove them off, nor were the Turks able to return. But then, still without orders from their senior officers, the British soldiers panicked, fearful of the unknown, and within three hours all of them had walked back down to the beach and returned to their ship.
Gilbert, Martin. Churchill: A Life (p. 310)

Other armies, led by mediocre colonels and generals, landed and remained for days and days on the beaches. And the Turks moved in and built up defensive entrenchments. When the British attacked, more slaughter occurred on the new “Western Front”.

In the Gallipoli Campaign, the British suffered around 51,000 killed.

At the same time, Churchill’s party, the Liberal Party was losing power. The war was going bad. The complaint was about all those soldiers on the Western Front who were dying. Asquith, in order to preserve his leadership was forced to bring in members of the Conservative Party into his cabinet. A new balance of power was created. The PM was allowed to keep his office, if he agreed to their many suggested changes. This included removing Churchill from the Admiralty. He had done very well there. It was a mostly political decision, deriving from his years of conflict between himself and the Conservative Party members in the House of Commons. It was payback time. In the shuffle of members in the cabinet, its new leadership did not initially bring improvement but exerted a transmogrifying influence. Effectiveness was reduced, causing even more muddle.

Churchill had no power after May 22, 1915, and yet he was given the blame for everything, including all the muddle of the mediocre admirals and generals. The Dardanelles had been his idea, but he had not been given the power to carry it out. Or as he put later in his own words:

Compare it with the decision to attempt to force the Dardanelles with the old surplus vessels of a fleet which had already proved its supremacy. The oil decision was vital; the Dardanelles decision was subsidiary. The first touched our existence; the second our superfluities. Having succeeded in the first, it did not seem difficult when the time came to attempt the second. I did not understand that in war the power of a civilian Minister to carry through a plan or policy is greatly diminished. He cannot draw his strength year by year from Parliament. He cannot be sure of being allowed to finish what he has begun. The loyalties of peace are replaced by the jealous passions of war. The Parliamentary safeguards are in abeyance. Explanation and debate may be impossible or may be denied. I learnt this later on.

Churchill, The World Crisis, Volume 1: 1911 -1914

His Mistakes

Perhaps his most prominent mistake in the early part of the Great War was to appoint Jack Fisher as First Sea Lord. In Fisher, up until the actual war, he believed he had found a spiritual brother, someone who agreed with his insights, his ideas for reform of the navy, and they both with enthusiasm put these into practice. Fisher had had a very distinguished career in the Royal Navy. He rose from midshipman, appointed when he was 13 years old, to become First Lord of the Sea, a position of enormous responsibility and power. He possessed charm, enough to become friendly with Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and his wife.

Fisher was a technological genius. When he was in the Admiralty, he developed all sorts of new implements and strategies. He was responsible for the development of the torpedo. Also, under his ministrations, he developed a ship called the dreadnaught. It was the largest warship ever built up to that time. His career in the Royal Navy included being promoted ahead of others on merit, being assigned as an admiral to command many ships. Whatever problems he was given by higher command he devised excellent solutions.

It immediately became apparent that they were like minded about many things: the ossified officer caste system that was not working, the need to change fueling of ships from coal to oil, the need in the face of the German threat, to construct the most advanced ships possible, the practice of bringing up young officers to positions of power and effectiveness, the accompanying need to retired ossified admirals, and creating a general staff for the Royal Navy. Not only naval matters, but their discussions ranged over a wide variety of subjects concerning war and governing.

After a year at the Admiralty Churchill brought Fisher out of retirement re-appointing him as his First Lord of the Sea. Their joint work, their brilliant innovations, produced numerous improvements to the navy. He simply could not believe his good luck in having a friend, an outstanding administrator, and a brilliant technician, to help him run the Admiralty.

Then came the Great War with its unbelievable stress. Fischer was 73 years old. He could not handle the stress of losing ships. In the Dardanelles campaign, in the process of clearing the mines in the strait, and in enduring the artillery from both sides of the narrow strait, there would be a loss of ships. Generals on the Western Front were losing in battles like the Somme or Passchendaele tens of thousands a day. Yet to lose a ship holding a few hundred or maybe a thousand sailors was simply unthinkable to most admirals in the Great War. This stress drove Fisher mad, and from being Churchill’s closest associate, he became his enemy, working every way he could to undermine and destroy his boss.

Fisher was perhaps Churchill’s worst mistake in the Great War. Fisher would undermine him and would destroy his effectiveness in prosecuting the war from a position of power for two years. Churchill appreciated Fisher’s ability, his talents, and his intuitions that were so often correct. It took Churchill years to completely rid himself of Fisher’s influence, and he would never have another have such a partnership. He would never depend on one person, no matter how accomplished and brilliant, to assist him in carrying out his plans. In the Second World War, he subjected all his plans to a small panel of generals, who had to agree with him. If they didn’t agree, the plans were dropped. That way, if his judgment was off, like it was with Fisher, there was a safety net.

Much unrest had been occurring in the House of Commons about the direction of the war. People wanted a change.

Employing the 1066 chart, and examining the transits to it, in May, 1915, the Pluto/Saturn synod was now conjunct the natal position of Sirius and it is opposed the Sun/Moon conjunction in Capricorn. This worked as an aspect of dissolution. It tested those in power as to whether or not they possessed the ability to fight an effective war. It resulted in a major reorganization of command structure in the cabinet. The Liberal Party was no longer to be in charge of running the war; members of the Conservative Party were being brought in. It was called the First Coalition, and it lasted from May 1915, to Dec. 1916. The politicians coming into power demanded the removal of Churchill from the Admiralty. May 22, 1915, was his last day. He later stated that the first few weeks of being ripped out of power and decision-making were the worse of his life. This new managing committee took over the Dardanelles campaign. There would be a landing on Gallipoli a peninsula on the north side of the Dardanelles. The best generals were serving on the Western Front. Some of the worst generals were sent to the Dardanelles; one of them had been had been confined to a lunatic asylum. They made many mistakes. They would land, then do nothing. Or they land divisions in front of high cliffs only to be machine gunned by the Turkish army. They captured objectives, and then decided to return to the comfort of their ships.

Churchill watched this from afar, frustrated. He had no power to make any changes in war plans. Finally, the British exit the Dardanelles. It cost 51,000 British deaths.

Churchill was blamed for the whole mess. He became the scapegoat. For years, the Conservative media, like the Times of London, smeared him, falsely accusing him of doing things he had never done.

On the day he left the Admiralty, May 22, 1915, we find that Saturn has joined Pluto on his MC/Betelgeuse, and that Neptune moved into the square of his natal Neptune. He had stepped on a lot of elitist toes, ruffled many fine feathers. He fell from power under the iron hand of Pluto/Saturn. Uranus opposed his natal Uranus exactly: It was a sudden fall from power.

What did he learn from the Great War?

His Lessons

Pluto would remain in his 10^th and 11^th Houses for both his wars. This kind of fall would have broken many. He recovered by learning to calm his mind, completely, by painting in watercolors. The hours he spent painting allowed him to still his mind. It was a meditation in which the war and all its problems, his personal smearing, his fall from power, all receded into the distance. Later, war being natural to him (Sun exact septile Mars), he went to serve in the front lines in the trenches, where death was so common it became banal. The worries about this or that, those who he had thought friends but who betrayed him, all the muddle and confusion of London grew distant, and in the trenches, serving as a Lieutenant Colonel managing his seven hundred troops, and focusing only on that, he was able to achieve long periods of inner peace. He was able to analyze what had happened without deep emotions interfering. He began to see that reliance on one person, supposedly one of your best friends, even a great genius, will never work.

In the Second World War there would be no Jack Fisher. He realized that the furious negative attacks that came at him in 1915 were partly payback for all his aggressiveness, stepping on too many toes, and that he needed to come to terms with his Mars energy and make it work better. And he did learn and grow. For example, as First Lord of the Admiralty serving in Chamberlain’s cabinet in 1939-40 he was assertive but never abrasive. He accepted their dithering and putting off of decisions, but did not criticize this.. As Prime Minister, he was very kind to Neville Chamberlain, allowing him to remain in Number 10, and he gave a moving funeral oration to the House of Commons after his death from cancer. While he knew that the ossified caste system in his army continued to produce third rate generals, he fired many, but kindly, and he reassigned others to minor positions that would not interfere with the war effort.. And rather than making a decision in spite of the objections of others he never in the Second World War made decisions without a majority vote of his War Cabinet.

The Second World War brought us a Churchill who knew, through suffering, how to exercise power with limits. That was an outworking of the Saturn Pluto influence.

Pluto in Churchill’s Chart

The Plutonian transit over Churchill’s MC and through his tenth and eleventh Houses occurred during both the Great War and the Second World War. It was deeply influential in every act he carried out and in every event that happened to him.

He was appointed by Asquith as First Lord of the Admiralty on October 24, 1911. Pluto located at 29° Gemini rested exactly on his Mid Heaven-Betelgeuse. That transit marked an ascent to power of vast proportions.

Forced to leave the Admiralty on May 22, 1915, when Saturn has joined Pluto, and that transiting Neptune now sits at the midpoint of his Moon sextile MC-Betelgeuse, and that it exactly squares his natal Neptune. The Conservative media, like the London Times, was smearing him, raining down on him false accusation after false accusation. Other aspects were occurring at the same time. Transiting Jupiter was inconjunct his natal Jupiter-Arcturus, and transiting Uranus exactly opposed his natal Uranus. His fall from power was sudden, and seemingly final.

His absence from the centers of power would last for two years.

In the Great War he served in the trenches in France as a Lieutenant Colonel for six months, which no other cabinet member did. But war was in his nature, and being in combat in the middle of it in France and Belgium, oddly gave him a sense of peace, and allowed him to forget the machinations and politics going on in London, and concentrate on military activities, which he loved above all.

In May, 1917, Pluto had transited up to 2° Leo; the Neptune influence in his chart had moved on. There had been a formal investigation by the Government as to who and what was at fault in the Dardanelles: Blame had been placed on Asquith and Lord Kitchener (who now had died at sea, when his ship, bound for Russia, hit a German mine and sank), more or less vindicating Churchill, though much of the smearing lived on for decades.

The war was going badly. There was another change of government. Prime Minister Asquith held onto power as long as possible, even by betraying loyal subordinates. On December 6, 1916, he had been finally forced to resign. Pluto was now at 3° Cancer 47’, exactly opposed the Sun of the 1066 chart; and Neptune is now 31° ahead of Pluto.

Lloyd George became prime minister. He understood that Churchill knew more about war than anyone in his cabinet. He and Churchill had long discussions about its prosecution. And he sent Churchill to France on various missions. Churchill in his new job became the eyes and ears of the PM. Then he appointed Churchill to the office of Minister of Munitions. This was an excellent placement of someone endowed with a genius for administration (natal Sun sextile Saturn). He did well there by vastly increasing munitions output for the war effort.

Churchill was back in government, and he would remain in government for twelve more years, serving in numerous government ministries.

His Writing

Churchill was the highest paid nonfiction writer of his generation. He wrote around fifty books. His longer works like the World Crisis, Marlborough, and World War II rank as some of the greatest historical writings of the 20^th Century. From early adulthood he worked very hard at his writing, and he wrote not as an academic, whose books choke the reader on footnotes and abstruse words, but as a story teller. All great historians are story tellers. His books, essays, newspaper articles sold well, and they still sell today.

He never bored his readers.

One of the keys to all the hard work he put into his writing was his Mercury in Scorpio in a close square to Uranus in Leo and an exact opposition of Pluto to his Mercury, implying a special talent when writing about war. Mercury is also in a close semi-sextile to Mars, so he had the strength and energy to write; also, as that Mars is part of a septile, there is a certain inherited mastery to his writing that showed even from his earliest books. The Mercury opposed Pluto meant that all that hard work would bring him in high financial rewards. That his three greatest books, Marlborough and the two World War volumes, were about war again shows that Pluto/Mercury influence.

That natal Mercury rules most of his 9^th House gave him the ability to add philosophical and spiritual observations. Also, his Sun in the Third House in Sagittarius meant that part of his life purpose involved writing philosophical history. This is the kind of history Thucydides wrote a few thousand years ago. It is the best and long lasting type of history.

The Wilderness Years

On the 4th of June, 1929, he began what historians describe as “the wilderness years”. Transiting Pluto still sat in his tenth House, now at 17° Cancer. And on the 4^th of June it was exactly square his natal Mars. Transiting Neptune was conjunct his natal Moon, ruler of much of his 10^th House. But most important, Saturn was exactly conjunct his IC, or 4^th House Cusp.

He was locked out of power by his contempories, but in essence he had begun a new cycle. In this cycle he would write his Marlborough series. This four volume set is quite possibly one of the greatest volumes of English history ever written. It captures a whole era of when the first British Empire was developed, when Britain rose to be one of the premiere nations of the world. It describes the English and the French and the Dutch and the Hollanders and the various German principalities as well as or better than any other historian ever managed. Most of all, it describes one of history’s greatest generals, a captain who never lost a battle, and it describes in detail his ten campaigns against the French armies of Louis XIV.

During this period, Churchill penned an enormous number of still highly readable essays.

Back into Government

3 September 1939

Pluto by transit has now moved to 2° Leo. And it takes place as part of a Pluto-Saturn synodic 3^rd quarter square. Europe is back in Saturn-Pluto energy, back returning to the same war Against the Germans. An armistice had been concluded in 1919, when both sides were totally exhausted. In its basic cause, the Prussian religion of war, had never been extirpated. Having predicted the return of German power, and having warned about the possibility of approaching war, and after the invasion by Germany of Poland (Sept. 1, 1939), he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and given a seat in the War Cabinet.

The war was managed by the people who had allowed the nation drift into it, and they managed it very poorly. Decisions were put off that need deciding on immediately. The invasion of Norway, that would cut off oil and iron ore being supplied to Germany, was a dismal failure. Of course, Hitler understood Norway’s threat and immediately invaded that country.

And things get worse. Suddenly Belgium, Holland and France are simultaneously invaded; the supposedly impenetrable Maginot line, a defensive line of fortresses, falls; it is the Schlieffen plan updated with blitzkrieg, lightening war.

In the House of Commons, after eight months of muddle, MPs are yelling at Prime Minister Chamberlain to go:

But a respected Conservative backbencher, Leopold Amery, formerly a friend of Chamberlain, rose and addressed to Chamberlain the words that Cromwell had said to the Long Parliament 300 years before:

”You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go!”

ANTARES RISING

Everyone understands that at this time the only person to manage this crisis, the most severe in a thousand years of British history, is Churchill.

On May 10, 1940, a few minutes after 10:00pm, Churchill is appointed prime minister by the king. A little after 10:00 pm on that day the bright star Antares was rising in the East. This would be an Antares rising war.

Churchill’s response to becoming PM

During these last crowded days of the political crisis my pulse had not quickened at any moment. I took it all as it came. But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 a.m. I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.