James Randi

1
James Randy kindly sent me his full birth data:
7 Aug 1928, 1.20 AM Toronto. Of course the data should be classified as "C" in Rodden's rating.
He wrote "1.20 am Eastern time" but EDT was used at that time. The very few events that I have for him show that EDT is the correct time zone. Asc 10Gem13'
Gemini rising- mercurial sign rising is so emphasis in charts of magicians. Mercury in Leo 90 Jupiter- he was very successful magician. He is very prolific writer ? wrote so far some millions of words, endless lectures all over the world
Appropriately, Mars, ruler of 12 in that house exactly 90 Neptune and Venus, co-ruler of 12th, conjunct Neptune- fighting against anything that has a slight connection with the esoteric.
He is not the nice guy but then who said a genius (his IQ is 168) has to be a nice guy? Mercury 60 Asc, 120 Uranus.
He broke his back in a road accident at age 17/18 and was forced to spend 13 months in a body cast ? Saturn 180 Asc.
In comparing his chart to Geller's chart (my rectification is 20 Dec 1946 2.10.36 EET, Tel Aviv Asc 0Sco09') the most prominent aspect is Geller's SN and Mercury exactly on Randi's Desc and Saturn. A karmic connection? Also Geller's Pluto conj. Randi's IC and Sun.
No wonder that they spend so many times in the court.
Much interesting is the Partner Horoscope, discovered by Alexander Marr.
The calculation is very simple and can be easily being done with SF. You should work with UT otherwise you will get wrong results. We calculate 2 charts:
1. In the chart of the elder, choose transit and put the data of the younger, then calculate the CONVERSE transit to the place when these 2 people met for the first time, in that case for New York City.
The chart we get: 26 March 1910 10.28 UT is the Partner Horoscope. In this chart Pluto in conj. IC and Mercury conj. Asc.
2. The second chart is the Auxiliary Partner Horoscope. The chart of the elder is taken as the prenatal transit chart in respect of the younger's chart.
We start with the chart of the younger, here Geller's chart, choose transit and put the data of Randi, the elder, and choose CONVERSE. We will get chart for 2 May 1965 19.02 UT. For New York a triple conjunction of Mars, Uranus and Pluto on Asc 180 to Saturn- surely not a happy relationship is expected from these formidable positions. In addition, NN exactly on Mc.

Re: James Randi

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Isaac Starkman wrote:James Randy kindly sent me his full birth data:
7 Aug 1928, 1.20 AM Toronto. Of course the data should be classified as "C" in Rodden's rating.
Hi Isaac,

Why's that? "C" means "origin not known" pointing to data with undefined origin that flows around among astrologers. But if James Randy tells his birth data himself, I think it should be "A", "from memory".

It's an interesting chart. From the tropical point of view, Gemini, the sign of a magician, as you pointed out, is rising and Mercury, the trickster is the ruler. The next aspect to one of the traditional, visible planets Mercury is doing is square to Jupiter, but because it's also applying the Sun in conjunction, it's more interested in the Sun (Bonatti and other traditional authors say that a conjunction prevails over other aspects any time).

Mercury and the Sun will conjoin while both still in Leo, so I would consider the applying - though still quite wide - conjunction with the Sun to be the most important aspect for Mercury. Of course it also means that Mercury is under the beams and soon going deeper into combustion. Combustion points to invisibility and somewhat hidden and mysterious, possibly also dishonest action. What titillates me most is that the Sun is on the IC ruling the 4th house - prisons, confines, underground and hidden places. Freeing himself from locked places was the specialty of Randi in his magician career.

The Sun receives Mercury in its domicile Leo, so Mercury = Randi himself got fame and power through the Sun, through those confines and locked places. The Sun also let Randi escape from the places it rules, figuratively speaking it saved Randi from destruction because of the reception.

Why I'm suddenly doing this tropically after promoting the sidereal zodiac also on this forum? I've been lately doing a study which I should have done a long time ago, and studied groups that have the Asc ruler in certain house. In the name of intellectual honesty I must say that the tropical zodiac gave quite clearly more coherent results than sidereal. Tropical Alcabitius seems so far to be the most promising system, it would seem to give better results than Whole Sign houses.

Sari

4
Knowing his personality, the data is probably fake
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yuzuru wrote:Knowing his personality, the data is probably fake
Would this mean that the data then should be classified as "F" :wink: ?

On the other side however, if charts can be rectified through events like his accident of the broken back (and with a couple of more events), then it can be argued that an astrologer will be able to determine if this birthtime is wrong. If for instance primary directions are used then in such a case the events wouldn't 'click into place' .

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Eddy wrote: On the other side however, if charts can be rectified through events like his accident of the broken back (and with a couple of more events), then it can be argued that an astrologer will be able to determine if this birthtime is wrong. If for instance primary directions are used then in such a case the events wouldn't 'click into place' .
My argument would be, well,
  • 1) I don't believe the idea that primary directions pinpoint an exact event, as some 19th century sources would tell us, but are instead yet another chronocrater for periods of time an event would occur.

    2) That you can't trust this data in the first place. I mean, is it even the right day and year?
Gabe

7
Would this mean that the data then should be classified as "F" ?
I would classify it as Dirty Data, as the source is not known for his reliability.
On the other side however, if charts can be rectified through events like his accident of the broken back (and with a couple of more events), then it can be argued that an astrologer will be able to determine if this birthtime is wrong.
of couse everyone is free to do as they please, including what techniques and method of rectification they like, or if they chose to use dirty data.

But, during the election, the first data for Obama was the time of 1:36 pm which was claimed to be from Obama?s campaign, according to someone who said that someone has asked him. Thid party data, and completely wrong, as the BC showed.

I saw a lot of "rectification" that "corrected" the time for 1:38, or 1:22, etc, but the only real rectifications that I saw, that got the correct ASC, were from Dr. H and from some vedic astrologers.

so, I would advise discretion :-P
Meu blog de astrologia (em portugues) http://yuzuru.wordpress.com
My blog of astrology (in english) http://episthemologie.wordpress.com

Re: James Randi

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I've been lately doing a study which I should have done a long time ago, and studied groups that have the Asc ruler in certain house. In the name of intellectual honesty I must say that the tropical zodiac gave quite clearly more coherent results than sidereal. Tropical Alcabitius seems so far to be the most promising system, it would seem to give better results than Whole Sign houses.
Wonderful! Would you please share the results of your research with us at some point? I commend your honesty and rigor.

9
Knowing his personality, the data is probably fake
The point is this: without documentation, Randi is not above giving out fake data and then point to the myriad of "accurate" delineations using this data as proof that astrology doesn't work. He would argue that astrologers are simply superimposing known facts of his life or personality on the wrong chart. He's a worm and best left alone.

Tom

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GR wrote:
My argument would be, well,
  • 1) I don't believe the idea that primary directions pinpoint an exact event, as some 19th century sources would tell us, but are instead yet another chronocrater for periods of time an event would occur.

    2) That you can't trust this data in the first place. I mean, is it even the right day and year?
Like so many traditional astrologers you are "stuck" in the 19th century. Astrology made some advances in the last 75 years. Carl Kuehr's book "Computation of time periods for happenings" published in 1934 was a turning point in the history of primary directions. In 1962 the Topocentric system was discovered by Page and Polich. Directions with the MC and Asc are identical in both Kuer's and Page's system, but the primary directions in topocentric has the huge advantage to pinpoints events with the adequate house cusp or with the interplanetary directions with very small orb, max 11' (equal to 65 days) for conjunctions and oppositions and 5' for all the other aspects. The average orb is 2.5' (equal to 2 weeks).
Here is example for Prince Charles; recorded birth time is 9.14 PM UT, rectified to only 22 seconds earlier: 21.13.38 UT:
1. Brother born 10 March 1964
III 120 Jup 2'
III 60 Ura 4'
Moon 0 MC 2'
NN 180 Ven 2'
Jup 90 MC 2'
Jup 0 PAF 6'
2. Severe ankle sprain 10 Nov 1958
Sat 0 III 0'
Ura 45 Asc 1'
Plu 90 SN 1'
3. Appendix attack 11 Feb 1962
XII 180 Mars 4'
4. First solo flight 14 Nov 1966
III 90 Jup 1'
Asc 120 Sun 0'
NN 0 MC 0'
5. Became Prince of Wales 26 July 1958
III 60 Sun 4'
Jup 0 Mars 4'
6. Toured Japan 8 Apr 1970
Mer 180 MC 1'
7. Toured Canada 23 July 1976
MC 0 IX 0'
Nep 120 IX 0'
8. Death of Gr'mother 5 Dec 1969
MC 120 Sat 4'
Nep 150 VIII 3'
9. Surgery 23 May 2008
XII 120 Mars 0'
10. Marriage 29 July 1981
Sun 180 MC 10'
V 0 MC 3'

I could continue with hundreds of examples, each chart with enough events that remove any doubt as to the superiority of the Topocentric system. All the above examples show the appropriate symbolism with so small orbs, in many cases with zero orbs.
If anyone know of any other primary direction system or any directional system that produce such appropriate aspects with so small orb I would like to know about it.
See also my article in
www.noeltyl.com/techniques/080531.html
There is no connection here to belief: either a system is working or not.
To my regret I don't have enough events for Randi, so no secure rectification is possible. In Canada, birth time was not recorded in 1928, but I assume that the date at least can be verified officially.
All I have so far is Randi's email.

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Tom wrote:
Knowing his personality, the data is probably fake
The point is this: without documentation, Randi is not above giving out fake data and then point to the myriad of "accurate" delineations using this data as proof that astrology doesn't work. He would argue that astrologers are simply superimposing known facts of his life or personality on the wrong chart. He's a worm and best left alone.

Tom
Randi is not my hero. He doesn't understand Astrology but in magic he is a professional. I admire him for devoting so many years to expose so many frauds. Without this "worm" we would not be aware that people like Uri Geller, Peter Poppoff, W.V. Grant, Ernest Angley and others are completely crooks, swindlers, insolent liars.

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Isaac Starkman wrote:Without this "worm" we would not be aware that people like Uri Geller, Peter Poppoff, W.V. Grant, Ernest Angley and others are completely crooks, swindlers, insolent liars.
I agree with this. Like nature depends a lot on worms, human society probably does as well depends on the human equivalent of them :) .

My problem with primary directions as a (rectification/prediction) tool is:
1. I find it hard to 'notice' them like transits;
2. Depending on what method and points(aspects, bodies, lots, midpoints) you use there usually are more than 1 directions every year in life;
3. There are quite a few events every year that could be related to the direction (especially in the lives of politicians/famous persons);
4. So it is may be almost always possible to find something with primary directions.