The Chandra Levy Case and the Gold Standard of Astrological Prediction

The Chandra Levy murder case is once again in the media. Here is the NY Times article.

This was a 2001 murder that took place in Washington, DC. Chandra was an intern who had an affair with a congressman and then was murdered. A suspect was found guilty, but recently charges against him were dropped.

At the time I lived in DC and the events of the case took place less than a mile from where I lived. I don't normally do "celebrity" charts, but this one was so close by that I went ahead and took a look at the event charts. At the time, Chandra had disappeared and no one knew whether she was alive or dead or what had happened.

You can see the charts and actual written prediction I made in advance of knowing the results

A couple of comments. First, as far as I am concerned this sort of analysis is the true gold standard for astrological prediction. To be a traditional astrologer and do a real prediction, one must work from a specific chart that applies to the situation, use traditional techniques and have a written prediction, made in advance, before the results are known. That written prediction then needs to conform to the results.

This rules out looking at Hitler's, Einstein's, presidents' or other celebrity charts, where the native or querent and their career and life are already known. This rules out the "psychic" astrology reading that may well get it right, but doesn't actually use astrological technique and is not replicable by others; instead the astrologer used the chart like a crystal ball or tarot card spread as a means to access their psychic abilities or a reading where a chart is not provided or even used. This rules out the oral reading that is accessed by fallible memory later, "oh yeah, I'm sure I predicted that perfectly"

This is not to say that I always perform up to the gold standard. I'm fallible, I don't always get predictions right. And I have to say that the Chandra Levy predictions did involve the use of intuition, judgment and psychic ability. For about a week after I made these predictions, I kept looking at people's faces and seeing skulls. Nevertheless, this was psychic ability exercised within the parameters set forth by the chart.

It's very important to set these high standards for ourselves as astrologers. It keeps us from being lazy and keeps us from fooling ourselves into thinking that we are predicting when all we are doing is reading what we already know back into the chart. But it is also important to realize we can't always get the prediction right. We set the bar high and we keep our eyes open!

Example of Financial Trading Horary

Folks, I get a good number of inquiries about using astrology for gambling, in particular lottery, and for the middle and upper class version of gambling which is financial trading, in particular stock trading, day trading and foreign exchange trading (the permutations are endless).

I've probably had over 5000 e-mails and phone calls from people that somehow came up with the exactly the same great idea that no one else has ever thought of which is, "HEY! I can use astrology to [pick winning lottery numbers, stocks, bonds, derivatives, forex, etc.]" There is certainly a great deal of money to be made selling gambling or financial trading systems, but I always wonder if it is so effective, why sell it, why not simply do a few trades using it and retire? But hope springs eternal.

So I'm always leery about doing gambling or trading readings. One problem is that to get a good horary you need to really care about the question. If you ask "Will I marry X?" obviously this is a very emotional, very visceral question. "Should I sell stock X at 10?" I'm sure the querent cares about the profit, but I doubt whether they have a close, personal relationship with stock X, again other than whether or not it will make them money.

All this being said, I have had a reasonable amount of success with financial trading horaries, so long as the querent is savvy about how to use the information and understands the results are not guaranteed. Here is a recent example:

Question: Will stock X increase in value over the next 30 days?
Time Question Received & Understood: 12:11 pm CDT July 10, 2016
Place Question Received & Understood: Iowa City, IA 41 N 39 91 W 31

The meaning of the astrological factors are fully explained in the analysis below.
Astrological Factors Considered:
In this chart 11 Libra rises and it is Saturn hour. As Saturn rules air signs by day the chart is radical or rooted which means it has internal signs of accuracy. As Libra rises you are signified by Venus who is peregrine and thus weak in the 10th house. The Moon is in detriment in the 4th house. Stock X is signified by the 2nd house which is ruled by Mars, who is slow, but well dignified by sign in the 2nd house. The Moon sextiles Mars significator of the stock, then opposes the Sun and changes signs.

Analysis:
Your significator Venus is weak, an indication that you don't have a lot of control over the stock price, which certainly fits the situation. The Moon is afflicted, which can show a problematic or stressful situation. The key is the state of the 2nd house and of the 2nd house ruler Mars. Mars is slow at the moment and in a fixed sign, but well dignified by sign. This indicates that the fundamentals of the stock are good, but that it is currently underperforming and will improve as time passes. Mars also rules the Part of Fortune, emphasizing these same indications. So my sense is that the price slowly improves over the time period of the question.

Results

Good call on the X stock! It went up. I had some doubts on the reading since technical and fundamental analysis were full of uncertainty and didn't quite align with your horary. The stock had some good news with positive earnings report. We'll see how it goes over the next 30 days.

Here is more on Horary Readings.