Picture credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Exchange of 8th and 12th lords

Parashara says:

• If the 8th lord be situated in the 12th house, the native will squander his wealth on evil deeds, be short-lived, more so if he is in conjunction with a malefic planet. (BPHS 26:96)

• In case the 12th lord is gone in the 8th house, the native will always have gains, will speak affably, will enjoy a medium span of life, and he will be endowed with all good qualities. (BPHS 26:140)

This is a Dainya Parivartana Yoga (possibly a Viparita Yoga as well, assuming other conditions are met) wherein the lords are in a mutual 5/9 relationship from trik houses. Due to this dynamic, the yoga may manifest as a series of traumas and losses.

The native is drawn to spiritual life, but may be a dilettante incapable of consistent efforts in his practice. He’s unable to sustain his pursuit of liberation, or moksha, sometimes distracted by sexual desires.

He has unanticipated expenses due to accidents, insurance claims, and psychological or medical problems. Alternatively, he prefers to spend his money on occult studies or sexual indulgences. He has a powerful sexual presence, with the ability to charm and seduce the objects of his desire, but he lacks sexual fulfillment and is in a state of constant craving.

Physically, he has problems with his feet, sexual or eliminative organs. His sleep is disturbed, or he gets no pleasure from sleep. His dreams may be upsetting.

Foreign residence is problematic for him, with unexpected misfortunes in the course of his stay. Alternatively, he may not like foreign cultures, or have difficulty interacting with foreigners. A certain degree of xenophobia may exist.

He has a heightened sensitivity, and may be intuitive, psychologically acute or psychic. On the flip side, he might suffer delusions or hear voices. He’s likely to be isolated at some point in time, either voluntarily or involuntarily. On the positive side, this could mean retreat into seclusion, or time spent in an ashram. On the negative side, it could spell prison time, hospitalization or confinement to a mental institution.

Famous people with this yoga

Czar Alexander I, Russian royalty; Melvin Belli, attorney; Fergie, musician; Ranulph Fiennes, explorer; John Wayne Gacy, serial killer; Philip Graves, astrologer; William Holden, actor; Alan Leo, astrologer; David Letterman, talk show host; Stephen Miller, homeland security advisor; Elizabeth Montgomery, actress; Chester Nimitz, US Navy admiral; Santha Rama Rau, occult writer; Della Reese, actor; Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, tennis pro; Jack Swigert, astronaut/politician; Sharon Tate, actress; Usher, singer/actor; Edgard Varese, composer; Stevie Wonder, musician.

Case study: Melvin Belli

Melvin Belli was a prominent American lawyer known as “The King of Torts.” His celebrity clients included Muhammad Ali, the Rolling Stones, Jim and Tammy Bakker, and Jack Ruby.

After law school, his first job was undercover investigator, riding the rails as a hobo to observe the Depression’s effect on the country’s vagrants.

Belli pioneered a jury-winning technique of dramatically demonstrating evidence, turning courtroom trials into theater, complete with props. He favored tailored suits, a red silk handkerchief and snake-skin boots.

His unprecedented use of graphic evidence and expert witnesses later became common courtroom practice. His principle of absolute liability, wherein manufacturers are automatically liable for injury caused by their products, set the stage for later consumer protection litigation.

After winning a case, he’d raise a Jolly Roger flag over his office building (formerly a brothel) and fire a cannon shot to announce a victory celebration.

Belli loved luxury homes, cars and yachts, travel and beautiful women. Most of all, he loved the law and authored 62 books, earning a successful second career on the lecture circuit.

Belli was married six times and divorced five. In his later years, he was enmeshed in legal battles, facing malpractice suits and owing a mountain of debts, including back taxes.

The Moon in 8th house Pisces exchanges with Jupiter in 12th house Cancer. The Moon’s association with Saturn tentatively forms a Viparita Yoga, but the aspect of positive house lord Mars upon the pair negates the Viparita. Jupiter is exalted and forms three yogas – a Dharma Karma Adhipati Yoga with the Sun, and two Dhana Yogas with Mercury.

The 8th/12th exchange is itself a weak form of Viparita Yoga, and the theme of “clouds with silver linings” was prominent in his career. His command of torts, or personal injury lawsuits, was instrumental in building his reputation. For every personal injury (loss) suffered by a client, there were potential damages (gain) to be sued from an employer or manufacturer.

But sometimes even such victories were hollow. Belli represented 800 women in a 1995 class action lawsuit against breast implant manufacturer Dow Corning. Belli won the case, but when Dow Corning declared bankruptcy, he couldn’t recover the $5 million he’d advanced to doctors and expert witnesses, and was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

Whereas the Moon is ordinary, Jupiter is exalted, thus making it the control planet for this exchange. Its placement in the 12th house reminds us that Belli’s life’s work was all about loss management – first, a client’s suffering loss of wellbeing, but after successful litigation, loss imposed upon the manufacturer in damages awarded by the court.

Picture credit: Richard Rothwell, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley (30 August 1797 – 01 February 1851) was an English novelist best known for writing the Gothic novel Frankenstein, as well as The Modern Prometheus, an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, before and after his tragic death by drowning. Her parents were prominent in British intellectual society; her father William Godwin was a political philosopher, and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft was a women’s rights advocate.

Until the 1970s, Shelley was known mainly for Frankenstein, which inspired many theatrical and film adaptations. Recent scholarship has shown appreciation of her other novels, her travel book, and many biographical articles for an encyclopaedia of the day. Meanwhile, her political theories on reforming civil society contributed to modern-day feminism.

Education and intelligence

Although born in an era where formal education was rare for girls, her father tutored her in a broad range of subjects and often took her on educational outings. He also assigned her a governess and daily tutor to read history in Greek and Latin. Meanwhile, she had access to his library and to the many intellectuals who visited him. Consequently, she received an unusual and advanced education for a girl of the time.

Shelley’s 5th lord Venus is debilitated, at first glance implying some cognitive deficiency. However, it enjoys a remarkable rehabilitation through the influence of intellectual grahas Mercury and Jupiter, such that it achieves Neechabhanga Raja yoga of the highest order. Meanwhile, her 4th lord Mercury is exalted in its own sign, a “gold standard” signature for a foundational education. Although she didn’t formally pursue post-secondary education, her 9th lord Saturn occupies the lagna, a “silver standard” signature for higher education.

The sambandha via mutual aspect between 2nd lord Moon and 8th lord Saturn is perhaps reflective of Shelley’s early education in the classical languages Greek and Latin, and her extensive readings in history.

Significantly, Shelley’s horoscope also offers a complex of robust yogas that are associated with education, intelligence, and wisdom – both Bhadra and Hamsa providing the foundation for a stunning Saraswati yoga.

Grahas in kendras

Shelley has five grahas, four of which are natural benefics, in kendras. Three of the natural benefics are dignified in one way or the other. Mercury is exalted while Jupiter is swa-rashi and retrograde. Venus is of mixed condition, since it’s debilitated but gains digbala in the 4th house. The Moon and Saturn are in ordinary condition.

Given the dominance of natural benefics in the kendras, this is a clear bias towards the arts and humanities, as opposed to any of the sciences or related fields.

Given its double strength, not to mention its occupancy of the 10th house, we can judge Jupiter to be the dominant indicator of profession. Since Jupiter is of the Brahmin caste, Shelley would have done well to follow a career path aligned with the values of art, culture, education, law, and religion. As it turned out, her essential contribution was in the realm of literature, both as a writer of her own works, but also as editor for her famous spouse, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Yogas of significance

In Shelley’s horoscope, Mercury and Jupiter form two of the highly-esteemed Mahapurusha yogas – Bhadra, and Hamsa, respectively – from both the lagna and Chandra-lagna.

Because of their sambandha via association and mutual aspect, the trio of Mercury, Jupiter and Venus form an impressive array of Dharma-Karma Adhipati yogas and Raja yogas. Mercury and Venus form DKA (1/5) and Raja (4/5) yogas. Mercury and Jupiter form DKA (1/7) and DKA (1/10) yogas. Jupiter and Venus form DKA (5/7) and Raja (5/10) yogas.

The mutual aspect between the 2nd lord Moon and 9th lord Saturn creates a Dhana yoga of modest import, since neither graha enjoys strength.

The Moon and Jupiter in kendras, wherein Jupiter is powerful via double strength, creates an impressive Gaja-Kesari yoga.

Although debilitated, Shelley’s angular Venus receives outstanding support from Mercury and Jupiter to achieve the status of Neechabhanga Raja yoga.

Since Jupiter and Mercury are already strong, and Venus is remediated to a considerable degree, these three benefics in kendras collectively create Saraswati yoga.

Signatures of career bias

Of the five grahas in kendras, the strongest two – Mercury and Jupiter – are “high-class independents” that favor adaptability and autonomy.

The strength of her 4th and 10th houses, invoking both education and social status, suggests a professional career. Although such avenues weren’t open to women in her era, Shelley could have been successful in academia, the law, or publishing.

Shelley has a strong 3rd house, where we find the swa-rashi Sun with its natural friend Mars. Since Mars also aspects the 10th house, this provides another clue as to Shelley’s natural creative outlet in writing.

Government employment might have been another option since her 5th and 10th lords – Venus and Jupiter, respectively – are in sambandha via mutual aspect on the 4th/10 house axis. Her 9th lord Saturn in the lagna, albeit without strength, is another hint at policymaking and administration.

Shelley’s horoscope also reveals the spark of innovation that kindled the writing of Frankenstein and The Modern Prometheus, both early examples of science fiction. The imaginative and inventive Moon mutually aspects the 8th lord Saturn in her lagna, factors that promote “thinking outside the box.”

Sudarshan vichara

In Shelley’s horoscope, Saturn has the greatest frequency of influence over the three lagnas, and yet Saturn is in ordinary condition. Meanwhile, Mars, Mercury and Jupiter are all tied for secondary influence, but Mars is moderately combust. This leaves us with Mercury and Jupiter as prime indicators of career path.

Mercury is strong and under the influence of benefics only. Jupiter enjoys double strength but is under the co-equal influence of both benefics and malefics. Rather than further parse their distinctions, we can simply default to their common attributes, revolving around analysis, communication, discernment, and wisdom. This can apply to any of the arts and humanities, eg, as a teacher or writer, both professions supported by multiple yogas in the horoscope.

At this juncture, we can return to that high-frequency Saturn which aspects both her strong 3rd house and 10th houses, to speculate that writing could be her strong suit.

Timelines

Overall, Mary Shelley did not enjoy financial security, let alone success, in her life. Her father was chronically in debt. Her husband Percy Shelley was likewise perpetually in want of money. After his death, Mary enjoyed some modest success as an editor and writer, but what little income she did receive, she often shared with other women beset with their own financial or legal problems.

Therein lies the irony of a powerful horoscope with a problematic dasha sequence. Shelley ran her Venus dasha from ages three to 23, during which period her father experienced money problems, and she married Percy Shelley who had his own financial hardships. Although she honed her writing craft in her Sun dasha and developed it over the succeeding two dashas, she died midway through her Rahu dasha and never realized the promise of that powerful Jupiter in her horoscope.

Picture credit: Town of Babylon, detailed and uploaded by Hayden Soloviev, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 35

Crowe used his phone to find the nearest car rental – a Hertz at Canal and Church. He headed over there, rented a Nissan Sentra for the day and hit the road. After crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, he took the Long Island Expressway through Queens, and the Sunrise Highway to Babylon.

The address Trenton had given him was a Chinese restaurant called The Imperial Orchid on Deer Park Avenue. The parking lot was occupied by only one other car, a black Ford Crown Vic parked with its rear to the building. Crowe pulled in nose-first beside it, bringing himself directly opposite the woman at the wheel. They rolled down their windows.

“Detective Trenton, I presume?”

“ID.” She extended a hand. She was an attractive blonde with bright blue eyes and a light tan.

Crowe gave her his Ontario driver’s license and New York State investigator’s license.

She compared his appearance to the photos on his ID and used her onboard computer to enter his name. After a few moments, she handed his ID back. “Restaurant’s not open yet, so let’s take a drive.”

Crowe locked the Nissan and joined her in the Ford. Sitting next to her, he now realized how tall she was. She wore designer jeans and a bulky green sweater that concealed her figure.

She headed down Deer Park Avenue to the Sunrise Highway. They were on the expressway just long enough to pass an uninhabited wooded area before she took the next exit, drove north one block and turned onto Neptune Avenue. She slowed the Ford to a crawl and pointed to a large house on the corner.

“There’s your house.”

Crowe looked. It was a large two-story, windows all curtained, yard not maintained. A two-door garage was attached. “Is it a brothel?”

“No. Originally we thought it was a drugstore, complaints from neighbors about street traffic at odd hours, suspicious characters coming and going. Surveillance ruled that out. Not a brothel either. Maybe there’s some hanky-panky going on, but not the usual trade. More like some sort of halfway house.”

“For what?”

“Recent immigrants.”

“How do you know that?”

“Surveillance videos. Lots of young Asian women. Usually show up in pairs, stay a few weeks, then leave.”

“Where do they go?”

“Who gives a shit?” Trenton laughed. “We advised Citizenship and Immigration. They dropped in for a surprise visit a few months ago, found half a dozen girls in residence, but apparently all had papers in order. No drugs or prostitution, so the place is off our radar. Ready to eat?”

“Sure.”

Trenton drove through a run-down middle-class neighborhood and returned to the highway. Back at The Imperial Orchid, the parking lot now held a dozen cars. She parked adjacent his rental and they went inside.

The Chinese hostess greeted her as Miss Trenton and gave them a booth at the back of the restaurant. The place was a little rundown but it smelled good and there was a small crowd at the buffet bar.

“How do you know Jake?” Trenton asked after they were seated.

“I helped him out with a murder investigation last year. As it turns out, I’m now trying to develop a new perspective on a serial murder case. Have you heard of the Riverside Rapist?”

“Who hasn’t?” she said. “That house on Neptune Avenue got anything to do with it?”

“No, that’s my case.” Crowe gave her a brief outline of the Greer murder and his role in trying to learn something that could help his friend Abbott. “Why do you ask?”

“The Riverside Rapist’s victims were all Asian, weren’t they? Is that just a coincidence?”

“Sometimes it is,” Crowe said. “I haven’t made up my mind about this one yet.” He could never forget Guruji’s rule of three: One event is just a point; two connected events formed a trajectory; three connected events formed a pattern. So far all he had were unconnected dots.

A waitress came with a teapot and two small cups. Trenton lifted the lid to see if the tea was steeped, then poured for each of them. Crowe raised his in salutation.

“How do you know Jake? Did you work together?”

“For a short while, until it got personal. But I changed precincts before we got engaged.” Trenton tossed her head, sending her hair cascading over one shoulder. It had a calculated look to it, as if she’d practiced it in the mirror. She shrugged. “I thought I had him hooked, right up until he got away.”

“Sorry. I really stepped in that one.”

“No, it’s okay. We weren’t ready for it. At least he wasn’t. Or maybe it was me, I really don’t know.” She stood. “Let’s eat.”

He followed her to the buffet table, where she loaded up on dumplings and a few other things. He took a bowl of miso soup, some tofu and a heap of stir-fry veggies. Back at the table, she sprinkled soy sauce on her dumplings and attacked them like a woman coming off a ten-day fruit fast.

“That house on Neptune Avenue,” he said. “Who owns it?”

“Some guy in Manhattan. An odd name.”

“Arthur Phuket?” He spelled the last name.

She laughed. “Is that how you pronounce it? Poo-ket? I thought it was fuck-it.”

“There’s a city called Phuket in southern Thailand. That’s how they pronounce it there.”

“How’d you know he was the owner?”

“Just a lucky guess.”

“Don’t give me that.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin and studied him. “There’s some connection here you’re not telling me about.”

“You’re right.” Crowe told her about the Thai High restaurant in the Wall Street district, and Phuket’s name turning up on Seth Greer’s list of Asian art collectors.

“Sounds like he collects more than art.”

“When did you have the Neptune Avenue house under surveillance?” Crowe asked. “And for how long?”

“Before Christmas, lasting just a week. Once we realized there was no drug or sex trade, maybe just a way-station for illegal immigrants, we shared our videotape with CIS and they did their thing.”

“Did you identify anyone, keep track of license plate numbers?”

“We have the names of the husband and wife who receive mail there. And the owner of another vehicle that was a regular visitor.”

“Do you recall names?”

“I’m not good with foreign names. Like fuck-it.” She laughed. “But I can call the office and get someone to pull the file.”

“Would you?”

She made the call and wrote the details on a napkin. Joe and May Dalangvit, plus plate numbers for a Dodge Caravan. And plates for a Lincoln Navigator registered to a Cutter Benz with a SoHo address.

“Mind if I hang out in their neighborhood a bit, see what comes and goes?”

“Be my guest. I don’t think there’re any stake-outs in the vicinity, but I’ll alert our guys just in case. Wouldn’t want you getting scooped up in something you shouldn’t.”

“I appreciate it.” Crowe looked at the bill the waitress had given them. “I’ll get this and then head out.”

“All business and no pleasure, huh?”

“Next time. But thanks for your help. I really do appreciate it.”

He shook hands with her. Her grip was strong, warm and slow on the release. He speculated briefly what it’d be like to be caught in her embrace. If Levinson had indeed been the one that got away, it was only because she’d let him.

Kala Sarpa

A Kala Sarpa pattern is formed when all of the visible grahas are restricted to one side of the nodal axis. Roughly 12.5% of all horoscopes reveal this configuration, of which there are four classes:

• Class 1, each node sits alone in a sign, while the visible grahas spread out on one side of the nodal axis, leaving none of the five intervening signs unoccupied.

• Class 2, the nodes remain alone, but some grahas bunch up in one or more signs, leaving one or more intervening signs empty.

• Class 3, one or both of the nodes is joined by a graha in the same sign, but none lie outside the degree of the nodal axis.

• Class 4, one or more grahas associate with either node, and lie outside the degree of the nodal axis, yet within the same sign as either node.

A Kala Sarpa pattern amplifies whatever already exists in the horoscope. Thus, it has the potential to make its native “larger than life.” But as a sword that swings both ways, Kala Sarpa can be either a yoga or a dosha. Kala Sarpa people run the gamut from the famous to the infamous.

While conducting research for my book Kala Sarpa, I analyzed 800 horoscopes with this pattern. Among those were 18 astrologers. Although eight of them are living, and for privacy concerns won’t be discussed, they’ve all achieved success in the field. Of those who are deceased, it’s instructive to take a quick look at each in turn. In previous posts we looked at Johannes Morinus, Alfred Witte, Marc Edmund Jones, Robert DeLuce and Louis de Wohl. Now it’s time for…

Olivia Barclay (12 December 1919 - 1 April 2001)

Barclay was a British astrologer who almost singlehandedly revived traditional astrology. While studying astrology in the Sixties, she found the pop psychology element unsatisfactory, and turned to horary. After obtaining an original copy of William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, she had it reprinted and thereby elevated horary astrology from obscure occultism to mainstream practice. She founded the Qualified Horary Practitioner course and wrote Horary Astrology Rediscovered, subsequently receiving a Regulus award for her contributions to astrology.

Thanks to her advocacy of Lilly and traditional astrology, many contemporary astrologers consider her the godmother of modern horary practice, whose rigor is grounded in solid rules and techniques. Aside from astrology, she earned her living in design and painting. She loved games, amusements and parties, and once invented an astrological board game, of which unfortunately only the board itself has survived.

Barclay’s horoscope has a Class 4 Kala Sarpa wherein the Sun and Mercury associate with Rahu exalted in Scorpio, yet lie outside the 00^o39’ line of the nodal axis. Her horoscope features benefics Jupiter and Venus in the kendras, one exalted and the other swa-rashi, thus creating two of the illustrious Pancha Mahapurusha yogas, ie, Hamsa and Malavya, respectively. This is the mark of a functional Brahmin – a teacher, consultant, and custodian of culture, history or sacred knowledge.

The Parivartana yoga involving mutual reception between Mars and Mercury in the 3rd and 5th houses, respectively, is a powerful testimony to her technical, writing and teaching skills. Here the nodal axis runs through the 5th/11th houses, where it highlights the Budhaditya yoga in the 5th, the sum of which reflects her devotion to the study of classical texts, as well as her being held in high esteem among her peers.

Exchange of 8th and 11th lords

Parashara says:

• Should the 8th lord be placed in the 11th house, the native will be devoid of wealth, be miserable in boyhood, but happy in later life, and if the 8th lord be in conjunction with a benefic, be long-lived. (BPHS 26:95)

• If the 11th lord is fallen in the 8th house, the native will suffer losses in his undertakings. He will be long-lived, while his wife will die before him. (BPHS 26:128)

This is a Dainya Parivartana Yoga wherein the lords are in a mutual 4/10 relationship. The yoga typically manifests as financial irregularities and broken social relationships.

The native experiences many ups and downs in life, especially with respect to income. His hopes and ambitions are jeopardized by unforeseen circumstances. He sustains reversals and financial losses in his undertakings.

His longevity is good, and he recovers from accidents and surgeries. He has hearing problems on the left side, or problems with the left hand or arm.

Friends and elder siblings are a source of unhappiness, either in his relationship with them, or because they suffer misfortunes in their lives. Friends and elder siblings may be undependable, neglectful or abusive.

In the case of a second marriage, his wife’s children (5th from the 7th) will be a source of unhappiness, through substance abuse, inadequate education, or financial mismanagement.

He is the beneficiary of family inheritance or insurance policies, although he may in turn lose a good portion of this windfall. He works in the insurance field or some other business related to death or trauma, although this is not highly-paid work.

Famous people with this yoga

Les Aspin, politician; Karen Black, actress; Princess Caroline, Monaco royalty; Jacques Chirac, politician; Monty Hall, TV host; Michael Elliott, Olympic skier; Jean Luc Godard, director; Clifford Irving, writer; Virginia Johnson, sex therapist; Albert Kesselring, militarist; Hugh MacLennan, author; Josef Mengele, Nazi doctor; Ryan O’Neal, actor; Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin; Chris Stapleton, musician; Lily Tomlin, comedienne; Al Unser, race car driver; Natalie Wood, actress.

Case study: Virginia Johnson

Virginia Johnson was an American sexologist, writer and co-founder of the Masters and Johnson Institute. She and William Masters established a research foundation to study the psychology and physiology of sex using volunteer subjects under laboratory conditions.

At age 16 Johnson had enrolled in college but dropped out, spending four years in a state insurance office. She returned to college, studied music and began a career as a vocalist, singing country for a local radio station.

She became a business writer for a newspaper, studied sociology but never finished her degree. While at university she was hired as a research assistant at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

There she met William Masters and together developed polygraph-like instruments to measure human sexual arousal and its phases – excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

Although Masters and Johnson became a household word, she had serious reservations about their Institute’s program to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals. In 2013 Showtime broadcast a TV drama series based on the biography Masters of Sex.

Johnson was divorced four times. The first marriage to a politician lasted two days. She married a much older attorney and divorced him. She married a bandleader for six years and two kids. She married William Masters and divorced him too.

Perhaps she never found resolution.

Saturn in 8th house Libra exchanges with Venus in 11th house Capricorn. Saturn is exalted and forms a Dhana Yoga with a strong Mars. Venus is ordinary but forms no constructive yoga.

Therefore, much rests on this Parivartana Yoga because, aside from the Kesari Yoga in kendras, there are few other yogas in this chart.

The 8th house themes are active via: early employment in the insurance industry, changes in studies, work in gynecology department, irregular marital life and divorce, scientific research applied to human sexual response, and (regrettably) experiments in sexual conversion.

Her 11th house themes are revealed through: a politician husband, a band-leader husband, radio work, her sociological studies and legacy, and the recent TV dramatization of Masters and Johnson, which has popularized their work all over again.

Whereas Venus is ordinary, Saturn is exalted, thus qualifying it as the control planet for this exchange. Its placement in the 8th house speaks to her legacy in matters of sexual research.

Picture credit: War Horse by Peter Trimming, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 34

After the heated exchange with Bishop, Crowe walked west on Vestry to clear his head. At the end of the street a single-story vehicle storage depot stuck out like a sore thumb, its faded yellow and blue paint scarcely hiding its dilapidated state. It was the real estate equivalent of a terminal patient waiting to die, after which a condo building would spring up in its place, given the unobstructed view of the Hudson River and its greenway park on the other side of West Street.

Crowe’s phone rang. It was Blaikie. “It cost me a couple of tickets for War Horse, but I got what you wanted. Thai High’s owned by a guy named Arthur Phuket.”

“Phuket?” Crowe told Blaikie he’d seen the name on a list of Asian art collectors in Greer’s research notes this morning.

“He also owns the penthouse apartment in the Cocoa Exchange Building, and a gallery in SoHo called The Bodhi Tree,” Blaikie said. “Not to mention a handful of restaurants and bars scattered throughout Lower Manhattan, Tribeca, and the West Village.”

“What about that house in Babylon?”

“Sorry. Nothing under his name.”

“Then how about a couple of tickets to War Horse?”

Blaikie laughed. “You want to go, just ask. After I saw the show, I was so blown away, I bought a hundred tickets to give away to clients. I’ve got every Saturday night covered from now till Christmas.”

“I might take you up on that.” Crowe thanked Blaikie and signed off. He called Levinson and caught the detective in his office.

“What’ve you got for me?” Levinson said.

“Not much yet.” Crowe told the detective about Tracey Lovegrove’s theory of a high-ceiling hideaway in which the Riverside Rapist must have hung the Filipino prostitute upside-down for his bite attacks.

“Interesting,” Levinson said, “since she’s not the only one who was bitten that way. And although hers was the fourth murder in the series, chances are it’s not a copycat. We took care to withhold those details. Anything else?”

“Not at the moment,” Crowe said. “I’m actually calling about my case.”

“For more help? You think the NYPD’s a charitable foundation?”

“No charity. I’m prepared to pay with tickets to War Horse.”

“No shit. For when?”

“Pick a Saturday, any Saturday.”

“Who do I have to kill?”

“No killing, just information.” Crowe asked Levinson if he could run a criminal check on Arthur Phuket. He gave the detective the names of Thai High and The Bodhi Tree as well, thinking they might be useful in a cross-reference search.

“Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know, but his name popped up twice in this case I’m investigating. Whoever he is, he’s up there in the food chain.”

“That’s it?”

“One more thing. You have any connections in Babylon, Long Island? Maybe Vice squad?”

“That’d be Suffolk County. Yeah, I know a detective there. Would you believe, those cops make twenty, thirty grand more than the NYPD?”

“Life’s not fair. Why’s that?”

“Suffolk and Nassau counties have the highest pay grades in the five boroughs. I guess they realized, you want the best police, you have to offer top salary. A lot of our guys have applied. I’ve considered it myself.”

“Can you give me your friend’s name?”

“Detective-Sergeant Joanne Trenton.” Levinson gave Crowe her number.

“Can I check in with you later regarding Phuket’s history?”

“End of day,” Levinson said. “Good luck with Joanne. She’s a pistol.”

Crowe looked up the address for the Suffolk County Police Department. It was in Yaphank, halfway down Long Island. He called Det. Trenton, identified himself and gave Jake Levinson of the 20th as a character reference. He outlined his case and explained he was looking for a potential material witness, Kitti Poornchai, gone missing.

“What do you want from me?”

Crowe recapped his conversation last night with Chandra at Thai High, how she’d described a house near the highway in Babylon that might be a brothel.

“I think I know it,” Trenton said. “It’s actually in West Babylon.”

“What’s the address?”

“Sorry, not so fast. Come out here and show me some ID before I share more. For all I know, you’re just looking for some action.”

“You think I’m a john? Would I drive all the way to Babylon when I could just walk down Tenth Avenue?”

“Give me a call when you’re in town.”

“Yaphank’s an hour and a half from Manhattan. Couldn’t we meet in Babylon? Maybe buy you lunch somewhere nice?”

“Are you offering a bribe, or asking me on a date?” The playful tone in her voice made Crowe think she’d acted this out before.

“Neither. I have a strict moral code.”

“That sounds boring, but it’s a welcome change from the people I usually deal with. Are you on expenses?”

Crowe didn’t like to take advantage of his friend’s largesse but it was all for a good cause. And as Blaikie had said, it was a small price to pay for participating vicariously in Crowe’s cases. “Wherever it is, I’ll pick up the tab.”

“Okay. I could meet you in Babylon at eleven. That work for you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Trenton gave him directions to a restaurant in North Babylon.

“How will I recognize you?”

“I’m tall, blond and armed,” Trenton said.

Picture credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kama Yoga: Love, Marriage & Sexuality in Jyotish

I published my book Kama Yoga in 2022 after spending two years on its research and writing, guided largely by principles shared by my teacher, Hart de Fouw. The project was an education in itself, first to confirm things I already understood, second to gain insight into things of which I’d been previously unaware, third to conduct some independent research.

Readers might be interested to know that many famous “sex experts” of history share the astrological signatures presented as “passion patterns” in the case studies of Kama Yoga. In previous posts of this series, I’d looked at the horoscopes of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud, and Havelock Ellis. This time we’ll examine another well-known name in the field:

Alfred Kinsey

Alfred Kinsey (23 June 1894 – 25 August 1956) was an American biologist, professor of entomology, and sexologist. In 1947 at Indiana University, he founded what is now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for writing Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), the first of which earned him broad acclaim, the second of which brought condemnation and withdrawal of funding.

The so-called Kinsey Reports, aside from assuring his place in the history of human sexuality research, shone a bright light into what had previously been a murky corner of human behavior. At the time, 96% of young Americans didn’t know the word masturbation and, when told what it meant, 40% believed it caused insanity, impotence and/or blindness.

Starting out simply to gather the facts for a non-credit marriage course, Kinsey devised a 300-item questionnaire about people’s sex lives and then traveled cross-country with four colleagues, recording 18,000 sexual histories. He approached sexuality as a biologist studying “the human animal” without imposing any moral judgements. This in itself was a new approach, using science, not religion, to address issues involving sex.

In the course of their research, Kinsey and his team developed the so-called Kinsey Scale, a simple rating from 1 to 6 to classify sexual behavior, with “1” indicating exclusive heterosexuality and “6” exclusive homosexuality. In particular, his findings on male homosexual behavior resulted in great controversy over the hitherto-unknown prevalence of homosexual experience, but also a certain liberation for an entire sub-culture of men who’d been obliged to conceal their innate sexuality.

Although Kinsey looked the very model of a conservative academic, traditionalists were infuriated, and accused him of deliberately promoting homosexuality. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, although Kinsey and his wife had both been virgins when they married, his research turned them into intrepid sexual adventurers. He allegedly had sex with men in his inner circle – outside of any research – and encouraged others to have sex with his wife. Further, his staff and their wives had sex with one another, while Kinsey re-purposed his attic to film hundreds of people engaged in a wide variety of sex acts, including much gay S&M activity.

When he published his second book, this time on female sexuality, Kinsey’s goose was cooked. Evangelist Billy Graham’s moral outrage prompted congressional hearings, obscenity charges, and an FBI investigation. Kinsey was branded a communist intent on destroying the American family. Within a few years, he was dead of a heart condition provoked by childhood rheumatic fever.

Kinsey’s birth time is unknown, so his horoscope has been calculated for noon-time, and then rotated to place the Moon in the lagna. Of the Moon’s sign position there is no doubt, since any birth time 12 hours earlier or later than noon can only move the Moon roughly six degrees in either direction.

Irrespective of birth time, Kinsey’s horoscope has none of the classic passion combinations that turn up so commonly in the birth charts of those whose fame, or notoriety, is linked to sex. However, his chart does offer an example of a secondary passion combination in the form of a Mars/Saturn sambandha. My tentative research suggests that such an association or mutual aspect of this pair is roughly 33% more likely in the horoscopes of bisexuals than is typical of the general population.

One could speculate that such a pattern might further be amplified by the overlapping influence of the nodal axis upon the Mars/Saturn pair. Since Saturn rules the 1st house, and Mars the 10th, in this Chandra-lagna chart, it substantiates the notion that unconventional sexual behavior of some sort might have been the subject of both personal and professional curiosity, meanwhile reflecting the toll that criticism and censure took on his reputation, career, and ultimately, his health.

Picture credit: Fred Palumbo, World Telegram staff photographerderivative work: JoeJohnson2, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Wilt Chamberlain

Wilt Chamberlain (21 August 1936 – 12 October 1999) was one of the best basketball players in history, most famously as a Harlem Globetrotter, and while in the NBA he achieved so many all-time records that they remain unbroken to this day. Born into a large middle-class Philadelphia family, he excelled in track & field and basketball, such that by the time he graduated from high school, 200 universities were trying to recruit him. After a stellar career as a basketball superstar, he switched his attention to business and entertainment, film acting and production, then authorship until his death of heart failure at age 63.

A Goliath of a man, both in stature (7’1” and 300 pounds of muscle at his peak) and personality, Chamberlain cut a swath through basketball courts and bedrooms alike, yet never fouled out on the court, or slept with a married woman, and was generally acknowledged to be a nice guy. In his 1991 autobiography A View from Above, he famously declared that he’d had sex with over 20,000 women and, when questioned about the math, admitted that it meant he’d bedded 1.2 women every day since he turned 15. His boast outraged white and black communities alike, since on the one hand it perpetuated a racial stereotype and on the other hand, seemed cavalier in light of Magic Johnson’s contemporaneous admission of his HIV+ status.

Chamberlain documented his sexual activity in a Day-Timer, often boasted about the high caliber of his partners, and developed his own 20-point rating system of lovers. He liked his women bright, pretty, well-read, widely traveled, interested in good food and good times, although their skin color was never an issue. As if to substantiate his admission that his favorite form of entertainment was him and a pretty girl in a big bed, his home featured a massive bed under a mirrored ceiling that with the flick of a switch would slide back to reveal the night sky. Despite having come close to falling in love with five different women over the course of his multiple conquests, none ever tempted him to abandon his bachelor status. His longest relationship lasted only three weeks. “The women I’ve been most attracted to,” he confessed, “I pushed away the strongest.”

Chamberlain’s horoscope reveals scant enthusiasm for marriage. Although Venus is his lagnesh, it’s associated with ambivalent Mercury and in mutual aspect with reluctant Saturn, who enjoys major strength, being both swa-rashi and retrograde. And while 7th lord Mars does occupy the sign of the romantic Moon, this is hardly a plus for Mars, since such a sign placement renders it debilitated.

The outlook for marital stability is lackluster. His 7th lord Mars, albeit stabilized by Jupiter’s aspect, is debilitated in the 3rd house, a “mild” dusthana. His 7th house is influenced by both benefic and malefic grahas, but a double-strength Saturn trumps an ordinary Jupiter. Finally, karaka Venus is afflicted by two strong malefics, Sun and Saturn.

With a Taurus lagna, Chamberlain has one of those horoscopes wherein Venus rules both the 1st and 6th houses – a primary outcome kendra, and a trikasthana – the result of which can provoke extremes of sexual behavior whenever Venus is coupled with a lusty graha to complete the classic “good girl” meets “bad boy” pattern. In his horoscope, we have two classic pairings for passion: Mars and the Moon, plus Venus and Saturn. Both pairs are in sambandha – Mars because of its unilateral aspect upon its dispositor Moon, and the Venus/Saturn pair because they are in mutual aspect.

Although passion is provoked with even basic contact between the requisite players, an exaggerated condition of either graha within a pair can push things over the top. In Chamberlain’s case, his Mars is debilitated, thus “exciting” the Moon/Mars pair. Meanwhile, Saturn’s retrogression is the exaggerated condition that enlivens the Venus/Saturn pair, while its being swa-rashi is an additional source of strength.

The sambandha between the Moon and Mars operates on two levels. As a karaka for courage, desire and prowess, Mars is a natural competitor, so its unilateral aspect upon its dispositor the Moon in the 6th house of competition reinforces this dynamic. Although we could rest content that this pattern accounts for his competitive play on the basketball court, we can also interpret it in light of his sexual conquests. Anyone who by his own account has slept with more than 20,000 women has something to prove, to himself if not the world.

As if we needed convincing that Chamberlain’s rogue Mars is the pivotal player in his relationship vasanas, it’s also involved in a second pattern that has further ramifications for his sexual behavior. Note that his kama-sthana triad – the 3rd, 7th and 11th houses – are ruled by the Moon, Mars and Jupiter. Further note that two of their lords – Mars and Jupiter – have remained within that triad. Finally, note that Mars and Jupiter are in sambandha, since Jupiter unilaterally aspects its dispositor Mars. This elevates the kama theme to a considerable degree. The presence of Jupiter alone in the 7th house speaks to the potential for an abundance of sexual partners, but now its sambandha with 7th lord Mars cements the notion.

Picture credit: Iris Schneider, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Exchange of 8th and 10th lords

Parashara says:

• If the 8th lord occupies the 10th house, the native will not have paternal bliss, will be a tale bearer and be bereft of livelihood. If there is an aspect in the process from a benefic, then these evils will not mature. (BPHS 26:94)

• In case the 10th lord is posited in the 8th house, the native will be devoid of good acts, long-lived, and intent on blaming others. (BPHS 26:116)

This is a Dainya Parivartana Yoga wherein the lords are in a mutual 3/11 relationship. The yoga often plays out through reversals in career or social status, thus affecting reputation.

The native has difficulty determining his right career and faces false starts and changes of direction. He uses all means, both fair and foul, to succeed in his career, but despite his best efforts, he encounters impediments and frequent setbacks.

He has difficulty with self-promotion, and is perceived as someone who lacks the drive or skills to succeed. Even when he performs his job well, he doesn’t get credit for it, and less qualified people get promoted before he does. He may experience embarrassment in a public place, or his social reputation is soiled.

Appropriate career fields include banking and insurance, medicine and the healing arts, psychology and any other discipline dedicated to transformation of the individual. On a more mundane level, mining, salvage and trade in scrap or used articles are profitable activities.

Finally, for some, the business may be immoral or illegal, such as prostitution, theft, dealing in contraband or stolen articles, money laundering, etc.

Famous people with this yoga

Musician Eric Burdon, prosecutor Marcia Clark, actor Kaley Cuoco, actor Adam Driver, astrologer Ronnie Gale Dreyer, actress/writer Carrie Fisher, musician Ariana Grande, musician Paul Horn, Spanish royalty Queen Isabel I, actress Sally Kellerman, astrologer Jim Lewis, musician Trini Lopez, First Lady Brigitte Macron, writer Kenneth Patchen, labor leader Arthur Scargill, playwright George Bernard Shaw, actor/writer Sylvester Stallone, musician Susan Tedeschi, musician Tina Turner, musician Shania Twain, actor Rudolph Valentino.

Case study: Tina Turner

Tina Turner is a singer, actress, and author whose career has spanned over half a century. Noted for her energetic stage presence, powerful vocals and career longevity, the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” has won eight Grammy awards and sold more concert tickets than any other solo performer.

Born to sharecropper parents, her mother fled an abusive relationship, leaving Tina and her sister in the care of their grandparents. A self-professed tomboy, she was both a cheerleader and basketball player during high school.

Her music career began when she teamed up with Ike Turner. But after 16 years of physical abuse, along with his cocaine habit and blatant infidelities, she ran away with only 36 cents in her pocket. She had nose surgery to repair a septum damaged from Ike’s frequent beatings, and at one time attempted suicide by swallowing 50 Valium.

Despite a near-fatal bout with tuberculosis, she transformed her solo career over six hard years. Although raised a Baptist, she later melded her faith with Buddhism, crediting the religion and its spiritual chant of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo with helping her through difficult times.

She later married a German music executive, renounced her American citizenship and became a Swiss national.

Mars in 8th house Aquarius exchanges with Saturn in 10th house Aries. Neither malefic is involved in any other significant yoga. Saturn is in a mixed state, being both retrograde and debilitated, hemmed by benefics and closely aligned with the Rahu-Ketu axis.

Post-exchange, Mars gains dig bala in the 10th. Pre- or post-exchange, prime malefics dominate the angles.

Difficult 8th house themes are seen in Ike’s cocaine addiction, her exposure to violence at his hands, her debts after splitting from him (leaving her responsible for cancelled tour dates), and the resurrection of her career from battered singer/spouse to dynamic solo act.

10th house themes are evidenced in her enduring legacy as a performer, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, listed in Rolling Stone’s Top 20 singers of all time, and her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Whereas Mars is ordinary, Saturn is debilitated but retrograde, leaving us in a quandary as to which enjoys relative strength. Since Saturn is afflicted by the nodal axis while Mars is free of influence, we might safely consider Mars the more likely control planet for this exchange. Its placement in the 8th house speaks to her multiple traumas, but also her self-renewal and recovery.

• Class 1, each node sits alone in a sign, while the visible grahas spread out on one side of the nodal axis, leaving none of the five intervening signs unoccupied.

• Class 2, the nodes remain alone, but some grahas bunch up in one or more signs, leaving one or more intervening signs empty.

• Class 3, one or both of the nodes is joined by a graha in the same sign, but none lie outside the degree of the nodal axis.

• Class 4, one or more grahas associate with either node, and lie outside the degree of the nodal axis, yet within the same sign as either node.

A Kala Sarpa pattern amplifies whatever already exists in the horoscope. Thus, it has the potential to make its native “larger than life.” But as a sword that swings both ways, Kala Sarpa can be either a yoga or a dosha. Kala Sarpa people run the gamut from the famous to the infamous.

While conducting research for my book Kala Sarpa, I analyzed 800 horoscopes with this pattern. Among those were 18 astrologers. Although eight of them are living, and for privacy concerns won’t be discussed, they’ve all achieved success in the field. Of those who are deceased, it’s instructive to take a quick look at each in turn. In previous posts we looked at Johannes Morinus, Alfred Witte, Marc Edmund Jones and Robert DeLuce. Now it’s time for…

Louis de Wohl (24 January 1903 - 2 June 1961)

De Wohl was a German-born author who wrote over 20 novels, many of which later became movies. Disenchanted by the rise of Nazism, he immigrated to England, where he was subsequently recruited by Britain’s MI5 to work as an astrologer for the duration of WW2. His intelligence value lay in his connections with Karl Ernst Krafft, the German astrologer employed by Dr Goebbels. Thus, his role was to anticipate for MI5 how Krafft was likely advising Hitler with astrology. In addition, he devised “black ops” propaganda for use against the Nazis, forging astrological magazines for air-drop into Germany, featuring dire predictions to hopefully erode military and public morale. For a time, he was sent to America to contribute to astrological magazines and newspapers which at the time were favoring articles by astrologers sympathetic to Nazi Germany. After the war, he resumed writing novels.

De Wohl’s horoscope has a Class 4 Kala Sarpa wherein Mars associates with Rahu in Virgo, yet lies outside the 27^o25’ line of the nodal axis. His horoscope features a four-graha Pravrajya yoga in the 7th house wherein its lord Saturn disposes the cluster but is in mixed dignity, being swa-rashi with digbala but also seriously combust. Despite this cluster holding so much potential, no Dharma-Karma Adhipati nor Dhana yogas are formed in the 7th house, because the requisite trikona lords (Moon, Mars, Jupiter) are all “unattached” in other parts of the horoscope.

However, Saturn forms one of the esteemed Pancha Mahapurusha yogas, ie, Shasha yoga, while the Sun and Mercury form a Budhaditya yoga, one of the marks of a critical mind. Here the nodal axis runs through the 3rd/9th houses, reflecting his life-long successful writing/publishing career. His writing skills are highlighted by his 5th lord Mars in association with Rahu in the 3rd house.

Picture credit: Tdorante10, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 33

Crowe checked his phone for Dean Bishop’s address, which he’d copied from the registration sheet at Dharmapada. It was on Vestry Street in Tribeca. It was about a mile away so he decided to walk it. He set off down Bowery. On route, he called Blaikie.

“Morning.” Blaikie’s voice sounded hoarse.

“Rough night?”

“I didn’t sleep that well.”

“Dreams of Thai dancing girls?”

“More like a nightmare,” Blaikie groaned. “I dreamed I was staying with friends in Florida. I went for a late-night swim in their pool and an alligator grabbed my leg. What do you make of that, Dr. Freud?”

“No more cognac for you at bedtime.”

Blaikie chuckled. “Anyway, thanks for the wake-up call. I need to get on with my day.”

“When you call your friend at the business registry to ask who owns Thai High, see if the same person owns any property in Babylon.”

“That house in Long Island the girl talked about? What do you think, some sort of brothel?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Might take more than one call, but my guy will know how to go about it.”

“Give me a buzz as soon as you know something.”

“Be careful out there.”

Crowe continued his walk. Half an hour later he was at the corner of Vestry and Greenwich. Bishop lived in a seven-story condo building, what had once been a port warehouse, judging by the faded paint lettering on the brick wall above the Greenwich Grill.

Crowe called the phone number given on Bishop’s registration sheet. A voicemail message said: “You’ve reached Edgewater Risk Management. Business hours are Monday to Friday, nine to five. Please leave your name and number. Someone will contact you shortly.”

Crowe left a message. “Good morning, Mr. Bishop. You don’t know me but I work with Bryan Abbott. I’d like to get some feedback on your recent retreat experience.” He left his number.

Crowe sat on the steps of the Greenwich Grill debating his next move. He wanted to confront Bishop about what had happened at the retreat on Friday, why he’d decked Greer. Although a straight answer was unlikely, even lies in response to the right questions might reveal something. But if Bishop didn’t answer the phone, how could he ask him?

Crowe took out his phone and opened his astrology app. He asked himself, was Bishop at home, and when might he intercept him? The app calculated a chart for 08:08, using local GPS coordinates.

Taurus was rising in the sidereal zodiac. Venus and the Moon, both representing Bishop, were still together in fixed sign Taurus. Bishop was at home. Fourth lord Mars and twelfth lord Sun were in an exchange relationship, suggesting he was also hiding.

Venus was three-and-a-half degrees below the ascendant. Since the ascendant moved about one degree every four minutes, this meant Bishop could appear in roughly 15 minutes.

The Rahu-Ketu axis, a fault line for eclipses in the chart, ran across the horizon. Ketu was in the first house, debilitated in Taurus. That suggested some kind of poison – tobacco, alcohol, recreational drugs.

He looked for another weak planet. Mercury, ruling lungs, was debilitated in Pisces and afflicted by Mars, ruling fire. Kitti Poornchai smoked, perhaps Bishop did too. Maybe he’d go out for a pack of cigarettes.

Crowe walked to the corner of Vestry and Greenwich, from where he could see the entrance to Bishop’s condo building. He could intercept him if he came this way, or follow him if he walked west on Vestry.

He checked the time. 8:20. He felt his body tensing up and gave it some attention, willing himself to shake out his arms, loosen his shoulders. He did the same with his legs, rotating his hips. He took a few deep breaths and exhaled slowly, letting the air drift out of him like invisible smoke.

A man emerged from the Vestry street entrance and headed toward the intersection. He wore some sort of basketball jacket, black with red sleeves. Crowe watched him from across the street. The timing was right on; this could be Bishop.

The man walked briskly, upper body tilted forward as if walking into a gale. Crowe kept pace from across the street. On the next block, the man entered a convenience store. Crowe crossed the street and entered. The man was at the counter, asking for three packs of Marlboro Reds. Crowe bought a bottle of water and followed him into the street.

The man paused a few doors down, tore the wrapper from a pack and tossed it to the curb. He lit a cigarette, took a deep puff and headed back toward his condo.

“Hey, Dean,” Crowe called from a few steps back.

Bishop stopped and turned, thus confirming his identity. “Do I know you?”

Bishop was just under six feet, with a rangy physique. He had a narrow face beneath a shock of black hair, and prominent eyebrows with a deep vertical furrow between them. If he was a meditator, Crowe thought, he was doing it all wrong. Age notwithstanding, stress was etched into his face.

“I left a message on your phone twenty minutes ago.”

“I don’t have time for some bullshit survey. Why are you following me?” Bishop studied him a moment. “More importantly, who are you?”

“A friend of Abbott’s.”

“What do you want?”

“Did you know Seth Greer was dead?”

“I heard that, yeah.”

“From whom?”

Bishop hesitated. “Lieutenant Lynch from the Vermont State Police. He called to ask where I was around midnight on Friday. But I was already back here in New York by that time. So if you’re looking for whoever did him, it wasn’t me.”

“Last Friday you and Greer got into an argument. You knocked him down. What was that about?”

“Like I told Lynch, the guy made a dirty remark about the woman I was with.”

“Kitti Poornchai? Is she your girlfriend?”

“Listen, pal. You’re starting to irritate me. Persist, and you’re going to be sorry.”

“Is that what you told Greer before you hit him? Or didn’t he get a warning?”

Bishop resumed his brisk walk toward his condo. Crowe kept pace.

“Have you talked to Kitti since she came back from Vermont?”

“No. And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“You went to the retreat together.”

“She’s more like a business associate.”

“She works for you?”

“None of your business.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“I think she’s gone back to Thailand.”

“How do you know? Did she tell you?”

“She’d been talking about it.”

“Why did she leave? She in some kind of trouble?”

“She had some family stuff to take care of back home.”

“Where’s her family? Bangkok?”

“Why are you so interested in Kitti?”

“She may have seen something the night Greer died.”

“Kitti doesn’t know anything.”

“How do you know, if you weren’t there? You’ve already admitted you haven’t talked to her since Friday.”

They arrived at the condo entrance. Bishop dropped his cigarette butt and ground it beneath his heel. He squared off to face Crowe, the furrow between his eyebrows now so pronounced that it seemed like his face could split open at that fissure and something ugly – like a creature from Alien – might emerge to bite Crowe’s head off.

“What’s your name, pal? Who are you working for?”

“Axel Crowe. But I’m not working for anyone. I’m just trying to shed a little light on a murky situation.”

“You know where you can stick your light,” Bishop said as he opened the door to his condo.

“Eventually the truth comes out,” Crowe called after him. “That’s just the natural order of things.”

Picture credit: Andrea Appiani, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 - 05 May 1821) was a Corsican-born military genius who rose from obscure artillery officer to Emperor of France, largely by winning battles, reorganizing governments, and having an apparently inexhaustible supply of ambition.

After distinguished service during the French Revolution, Napoleon became a national hero through victories in Italy, seized political power in the coup of 1799, and crowned himself emperor in 1804. He then spent the next decade rearranging Europe, usually by defeating whichever coalition had the misfortune to oppose him. Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram cemented his reputation. His strategy became less successful when he invaded Spain, where guerrillas proved that being difficult was itself a military tactic, and disastrously invaded Russia in 1812. The resulting retreat destroyed much of his Grande Armée.

Defeated by a European coalition in 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba, where he contributed “Able was I ere I saw Elba” to the history of palindromes. Inevitably, he escaped, returned to France, and ruled again for 100 days—an impressive encore that ended at Waterloo in 1815. Exiled to Saint Helena, he died in 1821.

His legacy is complicated: the Napoleonic Code, administrative reform, education, and legal equality endure, but so do memories of censorship, authoritarianism, colonial slavery, repression, and devastating wars. Napoleon conquered much of Europe—and ultimately discovered that Europe had a very large “undo” button.

Although the full pro forma for government authority, jurisdiction or service runs to seven principles (as discussed in my book Karma & Career), the broadest single principle for a signature of government involvement is sambandha between the 10th lord and either of the 5th or 9th lords. If both conditions coexist in strength, and are supplemented by other signs of confluence, the argument for a public sector career becomes more compelling.

Elements in Napoleon Bonaparte’s horoscope that fulfill the “public sector career” pro forma include:

• 10th lord Moon enjoys double strength (bright, digbala) and aspects its own house

• 10th lord Moon is in Parivartana with 4th lord Saturn

• 10th lord Moon and 5th lord Saturn are in mutual aspect

• 10th lord Moon and 9th lord Mercury are in mutual aspect

• 5th lord Saturn and 9th lord Mercury both occupy the 10th house

For those who are interested in politics and power, many of these principles (and/or others in the jyotish pro forma) are fulfilled in the horoscopes of Harry Truman, 33rd President of the USA, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic representative for New York’s 14th congressional district.

Photo credit: Ante Brkan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock (13 August 1899 - 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, arguably the most influential filmmaker in the history of cinema. He directed 53 feature films in a six-decade career, becoming as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting of the TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

At the request of his own father he was briefly jailed at age five, an experience that instilled in him a life-long fear of the police. As a youth, Hitchcock was schooled by Jesuits, whom he credits for his skills in organization, control and analysis, a combination later applied in his strict adherence to creating storyboards for plot structure prior to shooting a film. He had an appetite he found difficult to suppress, and struggled with obesity, hovering around 300 pounds for much of his life. Although married for 53 years to a woman born just hours after him (therefore also with a Kala Sarpa), he suffered from unfulfilled sexual desire that resulted in obsession with many, and sexual harassment of some, of his actors.

He began his career in England but was soon lured to Hollywood, and spent the rest of his life in California. Some of his films were blockbusters; Psycho personally earned him today’s equivalent of $124 million. His films offer psychologists much material for interpretation: voyeuristic points of view from cameras, cameo roles in every film, a fascination with emotionally-cold blondes, difficult relationships with mother figures, and sexual innuendo. Although he was nominated five times for best director, he never won an Oscar. However, he was made a Knight of the British Empire just months before his death of renal failure in 1980.

In Hitchcock’s chart, no planet occupies the same sign as either of the nodes, while all of the intervening signs are occupied. Therefore, this is a rare Class 1 “Perfect” Kala Sarpa, found in a mere 0.3% of the general population. It’s an anuloma type, with all planets moving toward Rahu, which becomes the initial point of analysis. With Mars aspecting Rahu but Jupiter aspecting Ketu, this is a mix of both yoga and dosha.

Hitchcock was born into Rahu dasha, Saturn bhukti, thus by virtue of his natal dasha lord there’s an intimate link with Kala Sarpa. Rahu in the 6th is aspected only by Mars which, as yogakaraka for Cancer lagna, confers both creativity and a high degree of command and control, the latter of which is also characteristic of a kshatriya graha. Saturn is retrograde in the 5th house but forms no yoga.

Rahu’s sign dispositor is Jupiter in the 4th house where with the Moon it participates in both Kesari and Raja yogas. Its association with lagnesh Moon also integrates Parivartana yoga between the Moon and Venus, a combination that invoked his artistry, his indulgence in food and drink, and what some critics have suggested was a formidable mother complex. Ketu’s sign dispositor is Mercury retrograde in the 2nd house where it receives only Saturn’s aspect.

Kala Sarpa amplifies his exaggerated planets – retrograde Mercury and Saturn – and the two have sambandha between them. While Mercury receives Saturn’s aspect, Saturn occupies Mercury’s nakshatra. Although these two planets are considered neuters, in this chart they’re associated with sex, because Saturn is lord of the 7th and 8th, while Mercury is the 12th lord. And yet the neuter quality of the pair suggests voyeurism, a theme that’s given traction by many of his movies, eg, Rear Window and Psycho, as well as explaining in part his lifelong fascination with “cold” blondes.

Note that three planets – the Sun, Venus and Saturn – occupy Mercury nakshatras. Therefore, for at least a third of all bhuktis, the period lords will invoke the effects of their nakshatra dispositor Mercury. Given its association in this horoscope with intellect, writing and repressed sexuality, these life themes became even more pronounced due to Kala Sarpa.

Many of the salient events in Hitchcock’s life occurred in periods of the nodes, planets linked to the nodes, or planets in exaggerated condition.

Jupiter dasha ran from age 12-28. In Jupiter-Saturn, age 15, his father died. In Jupiter-Rahu, age 27, he married a woman exactly the same age as him. Born just a few hours later, she therefore had a Kala Sarpa horoscope too.

Saturn dasha, age 28-47, Hitchcock’s burgeoning film career took off, and he relocated from England to Hollywood. In Saturn-Saturn, the year of his Saturn return, his only daughter was born. In Saturn-Moon, age 39, he signed a 7-year contract with Hollywood. In Saturn-Rahu, in 1940 and 1942, he bought two properties in California.

Mercury dasha, age 47-64, was an extremely prolific period during which he produced his best-known films, eg, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho. In Mercury-Rahu, age 56, his TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents was launched. In Mercury-Saturn, age 62, he initiated a 10-day extensive interview (500 questions) with Francois Truffaut. During this same conjoined period of exaggerated planets he was obsessed with, and persistent in his sexual harassment of, Tippi Hedren on the set of The Birds.

Ketu dasha ran from age 64-71. During this period he released The Birds and Marnie, the latter of which was described by one critic as “a story of sexual violence… a sick film… because Hitchcock suffered all his life from furious sexual desire and its lack of gratification…”

Venus dasha, from age 71 to his death, saw Hitchcock in increasingly poor health, resulting in diminished production limited to the movies Frenzy and Family Plot. In Venus-Rahu, age 80, he was knighted by the Queen. Three months later, in Venus-Jupiter, he was dead.

Photo credit: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 32

Crowe awoke naturally at five AM, showered and shaved. He meditated for half an hour and did some yoga. He used his astrology app to calculate a chart for the day. He made some tea and drank it as he memorized the current planetary positions, a daily mental discipline he’d observed ever since Guruji had drilled it into him fifteen years ago.

An astrologer must develop a powerful memory, Guruji had said. Knowledge without memory is like money locked in a vault. If he cannot remember his PIN, a millionaire is no more than a pauper. Guruji was a man of his time. Although schooled in ancient ways, he had a knack for modern metaphors.

Crowe went for a walk around Washington Square Park. The birds were noisy in the trees and a flock of pigeons were pecking at a handful of sesame seeds scattered on the sidewalk. From one of the highest trees a lone crow cawed three times. Crowe was tempted to call back to a kindred spirit but there were dog-walkers nearby and he didn’t want to look like a kook.

He walked over to Sheridan Square and ate breakfast in a small restaurant with a view of the gardens. He was still thinking about what he’d learned last night at Thai High, wondering how he could possibly find the house in Long Island that Chandra had told him about.

He returned to his hotel and killed some time browsing the complimentary newspaper left outside his door.

At seven thirty he walked to Cooper Square. The atmosphere at The Village Voice was less frenetic than yesterday, but he still had to undergo a body scan at the security desk before being issued a visitor’s pass to visit Magnusson.

In his office the editor was pounding away at his computer keyboard like a piano player trying to catch up to a tune from half a bar behind. As Crowe appeared in the doorway, he paused typing just long enough to reach into his briefcase and hand over a sheaf of paper.

“Here’s the story Greer had been working on.” Magnusson gestured to a chair. “Read it here. But no questions, I’m on a deadline.”

Crowe sat and flipped through the sheaf in hand. The draft article was about twenty pages of double-spaced text. Appended were another ten pages of miscellaneous notes, some typed, some handwritten.

The story concerned stolen art and antiquities. Since the creation of the National Stolen Property Act, the US Attorney’s Office had been empowered to prosecute art dealers, galleries and museums lacking air-tight provenance for art and antiquities found in their possession.

This had become a major issue for museums ever since 2011 when LA’s Getty Museum, after failing to provide proof of legal acquisition, had been forced to return to Italy its statue of Aphrodite. The scandal ended the career of the museum’s antiquities curator, and exposed how the Getty and other museums had added stolen property to their collections.

The US Attorney’s Office had since gone after museums across the country. Because donations to museums generated tax deductions for donors, many museums had received gifts of art and antiquities worth millions. Although most wealthy patrons donated art out of sheer charity, some canny billionaires simply acquired art to donate in exchange for tax deductions.

The widespread practice had created a bubble market. Curators were often encouraged by donors to over-evaluate items, meanwhile under pressure not to investigate too aggressively the paperwork concerning provenance – dates of discovery, import/export records, authenticity certificates and deeds of ownership.

Under the NSPA, there was no statute of limitations. No matter when an item had been acquired, possession without proper provenance was a crime. The museum’s curator and board of directors were all liable for prosecution, and the museum could be forced to forfeit its holding.

Over the past few years, federal agents had paid surprise visits to dozens of museums, demanding proof of provenance. If found lacking, they removed the items pending resolution of lawful ownership. Museum officials scrambled to protect themselves from prosecution.

Greer’s story wove in two other elements. One was about local players in the world of art and antiquities, not only museums but also private collectors and galleries whose feeder networks supplied them. The other was the shadow-world of forgers, thieves and smugglers who supplied product to a market which, despite its legal risks, offered great financial incentive.

It was like the game of hot potato. When the music stopped, whoever was caught holding the work of art was guilty. Thieves and smugglers had the least to lose, because the items moved quickly through their hands. But once it ended up in a collection – private or public – it became a stationary target at risk for discovery and prosecution.

Greer’s story was apparently incomplete, but from the volume of his notes and the appended list of contacts, it was clear he’d had intentions to flesh out the story. There was a list of museums, with names and phone numbers of directors and curators. There was a longer list of galleries and their directors, and a shorter list of collectors.

On a couple of these lists, Greer had penned a red arrow with the word “key” in the margin. One was a curator, Roxanne Morton at the Manhattan Museum of Asian Antiquities. Another was a collector named Arthur Phuket. A gallery in SoHo called The Bodhi Tree was also flagged.

Crowe took out his phone. Magnusson was still absorbed in his race to a looming deadline, his fingers dancing across the keyboard as if it were too hot to touch. Crowe took a picture of each contact list. He fastened the clip on the sheaf and put it back on Magnusson’s desk.

The editor paused a moment and turned to look at Crowe, his eyes coming into focus as if he’d just realized someone else was in the office. “Anything useful?”

“I don’t know, but it gives me some ideas. Thanks for letting me take a look.”

“Glad I could help. Sorry I can’t talk now, but if you want to grab a drink end of day, I’m generally thirsty. Give me a call.”

Crowe nodded and left.

Photo credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kama Yoga: Love, Marriage & Sexuality in Jyotish

A few years ago I published my book Kama Yoga. I’d spent a couple of years on its research and writing, guided largely by principles I’d learned from my teacher, Hart de Fouw. The whole project inevitably became an education in itself, first to confirm things I already understood, second to gain insight into things of which I’d been previously unaware.

Readers might be interested to know that many famous “sex experts” of history share the astrological signatures presented as “passion patterns” in the case studies of Kama Yoga. In previous posts of this series, I’d looked at the horoscopes of Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freud. This time we’ll examine another well-known name in the field:

Havelock Ellis

Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, and progressive social reformer who studied and wrote extensively on human sexuality. In 1897 he co-wrote the first English-language medical textbook on homosexuality, and later published works on a variety of sexual phenomena, including transgender psychology. He also introduced the concepts of narcissism and autoeroticism that were later adopted by psychoanalysis.

Born in England, Ellis travelled to Australia after completing his basic education and worked for four years as a tutor and schoolmaster, albeit with lackluster performance reviews. Perhaps because he lacked any experience in the matter, he decided to take up the study of sex, and returned to England to qualify first as a physician. Although he received his medical degree, he never established a regular practice, and soon gave up medicine for literary pursuits. Through interviews and research, he compiled information on human sexuality and began to write about it.

The first volume of his Studies in the Psychology of Sex was titled Sexual Inversion and dealt with homosexuality, for which reason it was promptly banned in England for obscenity. Undaunted, Ellis continued to churn out more books about various aspects of sexuality. Ironically, his own sex life was nothing but a series of awkward relationships. At age 25 he developed a serious crush while corresponding with a female novelist but, upon meeting her in person, was unable to respond physically to her sexual overtures.

At age 31 he met a bright and attractive social worker who first admired his writing, and then proposed marriage. Although hesitant, he agreed, but the marriage was never consummated because he was impotent. As it turned out, she was a manic-depressive lesbian and their 25-year marriage became a series of fallouts and nervous breakdowns, often followed by her return to lesbian lovers, while he found consolation in a series of sexless affairs with admirers. Needless to say, his friends found it amusing that he was regarded as a sex expert, yet was functionally impotent.

Ellis was 57 when he met a young Frenchwoman, a literary translator, who became his constant companion. Despite his apparent impotence, she persisted in lavishing both emotional and physical love upon him until a miracle occurred and, at age 60, he achieved an erection and enjoyed full coitus. Although she wanted to move in with him, he declared that he couldn’t afford to support her. However, with financial support from the American social activist Margaret Sanger, they spent 22 years together.

In Ellis’s horoscope, the Moon has gone to the 12th house, the bhoga-sthana associated with pleasures of the bed. The irony here is that, since his body was frequently uncooperative, Ellis’s interest remained predominantly intellectual. The Moon is in exaggerated condition, being dark and therefore weak in the last tithi of a waning phase. The passion combination between the romantic Moon and lusty Saturn offers an example of super sambandha, for not only are the two in mutual aspect, but are in Parivartana as well, and therefore each other’s dispositors.

Alas, the placement of lagnesh and 12th lord Saturn in the 6th house is a handicap for Ellis, if not a genuine physical deficiency, at least a predisposition for awkwardness, frustration and obstacles with respect to intimate relations. Meanwhile, the placement of his 7th lord Sun in the 12th house also suggests a theme of distance or loss with respect to romantic or marital partners. Indeed, some of his most workable relationships were those in which he was given adequate solitude to pursue his work.

Photo credit: Distributed by Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Exchange of 8th and 9th lords

Parashara says:

• If the 8th lord is situated in the 9th house, the native will be a betrayer of his religion and a heterodox; he will be the husband of a wicked wife and will steal other’s wealth. (BPHS 26:93)

• If the 9th lord is gone in the 8th house, the native will be devoid of fortune, and he will not have the happiness of an elder brother. (BPHS 26:104)

This is a Dainya Parivartana Yoga wherein the lords are in a mutual 2/12 relationship. Because of this dynamic, typical manifestations include problems with the father and a distinct lack of luck in life.

The native follows an unorthodox religion or spiritual pursuit, and is inclined toward the so-called “left hand path” of occult studies, eg, sex magic, witchcraft and raising the dead. Alternatively, he pursues a conventional spiritual path but is misled by a false or unreliable guru. His morality is deficient, such that he tries to profit materially from those with whom he associates.

His general fortunes in life are largely obstructed, such that he can’t capitalize on opportunities. “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” He has difficulty pursuing his higher education, and faces interruptions or changes in direction. Similarly, foreign travel encounters delays, cancellations, documentation problems and other complications. He is unsuccessful in legal proceedings.

Physically, he has problems with the hip, lower back and sciatic nerve.

His father’s health is poor, or his father is subject to accidents, surgeries and miscellaneous losses or mishaps in life. On the positive side, he may inherit his father’s property.

His potential career path includes the fields of insurance, estate planning, and the administration of trusts and wills.

Famous people with this yoga

Piers Anthony, writer; Stephen Arroyo, astrologer; Nino Benvenuti, boxer; Jerry Brown, politician; Truman Capote, [B] writer; Pete Conrad, astronaut; Clint Eastwood, actor; Harlan Ellison, writer; Friedrich Engels, communist; Nigel Farage, politician; Marvin Gaye, musician; Larry Hagman, actor; Warren Harding, politician; Dustin Hoffman, actor; Bobby Hull, hockey player; Jim Jones, cult leader; Kris Kristofferson, musician; Traci Lords, porn star; Jean Giraud “Moebius”, cartoonist; Franz von Papen, politician; Sean Penn, actor; Sylvia Plath, writer; Sam Reynolds, astrologer; Pierre Salinger, journalist; Jon Voight, actor.

Case study: Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Her father, a biology professor who wrote a book about bees, died of untreated diabetes when Plath was eight. Many of her later poems spoke of her love, hate, fear and fused identity with that of her father.

During university, furious at missing a chance to meet poet Dylan Thomas, she slashed her legs. Following shock therapy for depression, she took sleeping pills but survived after lying in a crawl space under her house for three days.

Although a brilliant writer, she was tortured by jealousy, obsessions and depression, finally learning “to be true to my own weirdness.” She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry.

After marriage to British poet Ted Hughes, they both became interested in astrology, the supernatural and Ouija boards. They had two children but, after he had an affair, they separated and she committed suicide by putting her head in a gas oven in 1963.

Posthumous publication of her last poetry book assured Plath’s fame. Critics saw the collection as her increasing desperation and death wish. Radical feminists accused Hughes of abuse and threatened to kill him in Plath’s name. Their son, following a history of depression, hanged himself in 2009.

Venus in 8th house Virgo exchanges with Mercury in 9th house Libra. Pre-exchange, debilitated Venus forms no productive yoga with a dark Moon, and is hemmed by malefics the Sun and Ketu. Mercury forms Dharma Karma Adhipati and Budhaditya Yogas with the Sun.

The entwinement of 8th/9th themes is powerfully evidenced in Plath’s complex feelings around love, despair, rage, vengeance, ambivalence, grief, death, redemption and resurrection, with father figures looming large in so much of her work. Depression, desperation and death wish are also bound up in the 8th.

Note that, not only is the 9th house “damaged” by the exchange with the 8th lord, but the house itself is heavily afflicted. The Sun, karaka for the father, is debilitated and aspected by malefics – a debilitated Mars from the 6th and a strong Saturn from the 12th – two mutual enemies whose opposition across the 6th/12th axis is itself a signature for self-harm and -undoing.

Since Venus is debilitated while Mercury is ordinary, this gives it the relative strength to function as control planet for this exchange. Mercury’s placement in the 9th relates to her literary status and feminist legacy.

• Class 1, each node sits alone in a sign, while the visible grahas spread out on one side of the nodal axis, leaving none of the five intervening signs unoccupied.

• Class 2, the nodes remain alone, but some grahas bunch up in one or more signs, leaving one or more intervening signs empty.

• Class 3, one or both of the nodes is joined by a graha in the same sign, but none lie outside the degree of the nodal axis.

• Class 4, one or more grahas associate with either node, and lie outside the degree of the nodal axis, yet within the same sign as either node.

A Kala Sarpa pattern amplifies whatever already exists in the horoscope. Thus, it has the potential to make its native “larger than life.” But as a sword that swings both ways, Kala Sarpa can be either a yoga or a dosha. Kala Sarpa people run the gamut from the famous to the infamous.

While conducting research for my book Kala Sarpa, I analyzed 800 horoscopes with this pattern. Among those were 18 astrologers. Although eight of them are living, and for privacy concerns won’t be discussed, they’ve all achieved success in the field. Of those who are deceased, it’s instructive to take a quick look at each in turn. In previous posts we looked at Johannes Morinus, Alfred Witte and Marc Edmund Jones. Now it’s time for…

Robert DeLuce (24 August 1877 - 3 May 1964)

DeLuce was originally a mining engineer, but came to be regarded as a pioneer of American astrology on the strength of his authority in Vedic astrology. The publication of his influential work, Constellational Astrology According to the Hindu System, in 1963 gave many a western astrologer their first introduction to the intricacies of the Vedic system, including its major/minor time periods (dashas and bhuktis) and the many harmonic charts used in the Vedic system, concepts that only became familiar to astrologers several decades later.

DeLuce’s horoscope has a Class 4 Kala Sarpa wherein the Sun associates with Ketu in Leo while the Moon, Mars and Saturn associate with Rahu in Aquarius. All four grahas lie outside the 09^o20’ line of the nodal axis. In this horoscope, a remarkable four grahas are swa-rashi – the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. Here the nodal axis runs through the 2nd/8th houses, where it also engages with the dignified lords of those same two houses, the Sun and Saturn, respectively.

Lagnesh Moon is full in the 8th house, where it associates with its dispositor Saturn, forming just one of four Dharma-Karma Adhipati yogas in this cluster, along with a strong Chandra-Mangala yoga. This particular pattern engaging the 2nd/8th lords and houses invokes a powerful theme of esoteric/occult knowledge sourced from foreign origins via a tradition of oral transmission.

Photo credit: Дмитрий Садовников, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons

Lionel (Leo) Messi is by now considered the GOAT, the greatest of all time in the field of soccer. In his childhood, his older brothers dubbed him La Pulga (the flea) because of his small stature and quick movements. Later in his career, given the evidence of his explosive speed and deft footwork with the ball, the nickname evolved to La Pulga Atómica (the atomic flea). Doubtless, the man is a force of nature, and the pride of his nation.

It wasn’t always a given that he would reach this level of skill and fame. At the age of 11, Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. The local pro football (soccer) team showed interest in his progress but wasn’t willing to foot the $900/month bill for treatment of his condition. Fortunately, a director of the Barcelona football club was made aware of his talent, and after a trial performance, offered to pay Messi’s medical bills if he’d move to Spain. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Messi made his competitive debut for Barcelona at age 17. He gradually established himself as an integral player, and by the 2011–12 season he’d become Barcelona’s all-time top scorer and set the European record for most goals in a season. Since then, he’s gone on to even greater success, becoming the most decorated player in the history of professional football, having won 46 team trophies.

His records include most goals in a calendar year (91), most goals for a single club (672 for Barcelona), most goals in La Liga (474), most goals (21) and most assists (12) in the FIFA World Cup, as well as most assists in international football (65). Messi has scored over 910 senior career goals and provided over 410 assists for club and country, resulting in over 1,320 goal contributions – the highest total in the sport’s history.

Playing for the Argentine national team, he is the team’s all-time leading goal-scorer (125) and most-capped player (206). With his help, Argentina won the gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2022, he led Argentina to its first World Cup win in 36 years. In 2026, he was key to Argentina’s rise through the qualifying matches and its late-game comeback to beat England in the semi-finals. Unfortunately, for both him and Argentina, Spain dominated the FIFA 2026 final match to capture the World Cup.

Messi has endorsed the sportswear company Adidas since 2006. He was ranked the world’s highest-paid athlete by Forbes in 2019 and 2022. In 2020, Messi became the second footballer and second team-sport athlete to surpass $1 billion in career earnings. In 2026, he appeared on the World’s Billionaires list for the first time with a net worth of $1.1 billion.

Messi was born 24 June 1987 at 20h30 in Rosario, Argentina.

In terms of graha avasthas, the notable ones are: Moon in mixed condition because it is both exalted and dark, Mercury doubly strong because it’s retrograde in its own sign, Venus strong in its own sign, Saturn strong because retrograde.

Due to occupation or aspect of their lords, the following houses are strong:

• The 1st house aspected by its lord Saturn (charisma, discipline, endurance)

• The 5th house occupied by its lord Venus (leadership, showmanship)

• The 6th house occupied by its lord Mercury (competitive instincts)

• The 12th house aspected by its lord Jupiter (success in foreign lands)

Thanks to his lagnesh Saturn and yogakaraka Venus being in sambandha via mutual aspect and association with the kendra lord Moon, the three grahas form multiple yogas across the 5th/11th house axis.:

• two Dharma-Karma Adhipati yogas (1/5 and 1/10) involving Saturn/Venus

• a third Dharma-Karma Adhipati yoga (1/7) involving Saturn/Moon

• a fourth Dharma-Karma Adhipati yoga (5/7) involving Venus/Moon

• and a Dhana yoga (2/5) involving Saturn/Venus

His lagnesh Saturn is strong in the 11th house and stabilized by Moon/Venus, suggesting success in teamwork and large enterprises. Meanwhile, a strong Mercury in the 6th house with Mars aspecting the ascendant indicates a fierce competitor.

Within the 6th house, a pair of those grahas contribute another two positive yogas:

• a true Raja yoga (4/9) involving Mars/Mercury

• and a Dhana yoga (9/11) involving Mars/Mercury

Messi began his football career with Barcelona in 2004, then running Rahu-Ketu. Rahu gives results for its sign-lord Jupiter and star-lord Saturn, the latter of which is Messi’s lagnesh participating in multiple positive yogas. The balance of the Rahu dasha saw him become Barcelona’s top striker.

Jupiter dasha began in 2011. Although Jupiter forms no yogas in the rashi, it’s well-placed in both his navamsha (D9) and dashamsha (D10). Meanwhile, Jupiter also gives results for its star-lord Ketu in the 9th house, which acts as a proxy for any planet that aspects it (Mars), its sign-lord Mercury and its star-lord Moon, all of which participate in positive yogas.

His current bhukti is Jupiter-Rahu, wherein Rahu gives results for both Jupiter and Saturn. Meanwhile, in current gochara, Jupiter is transiting his 7th house from whence it aspects both his lagna and lagnesh Saturn, thus a boost for name and fame. At the same time, Saturn is transiting his 3rd house from whence it aspects both his 5th house and 5th lord Venus. Thus, at one and the same time, Saturn offers a reality check and a solidification of his enduring place in what is arguably the world’s most popular sport.

Although a modest 5’7” in height, Messi remains a giant in football history.

Photo credit: Paulo JC Nogueira, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 31

Blaikie found underground parking in the financial district. They walked to the nearby Thai High restaurant, located in a narrow wedge of a 15-story building that separated Pearl and Beaver streets, its front door facing Wall Street.

“This is the old Cocoa Exchange Building.” Blaikie opened the door. “Used to be a sushi restaurant a year ago, but it changed hands.”

A Thai hostess showed them to a table. A line of potted bamboo trees separated the dining area from the bar. A bas-relief of a reclining golden Buddha spanned the wall behind the bar, striking Crowe as incongruous, since Buddha nature was the antithesis of intoxication. The floor was bamboo, the tables dark wood, the light from suspended globes muted. Between the windows looking onto Pearl and Beaver Streets were wall-mounted figurines of Thai dancers and Kinnari, the bird-woman deity.

Crowe recalled his dream in Montreal, the night before he’d received Abbott’s call for help. Did the kinnari’s appearance mean something? In Thai mythology, the hybrid form of the deity symbolized her ability to fly between human and mystical worlds.

A waitress asked if they’d like a drink. She was beautiful, wearing high heels and a green silk dress slit to the hip, revealing a swath of flawless thigh. The dress was sleeved, but scooped at front and back, revealing just enough cleavage to provoke the imagination.

Blaikie ordered a glass of white wine, Crowe a mango juice.

“Have you gentlemen been here before?”

“No,” Blaikie said. “What do you recommend?”

“That depends on what you and your friend are looking for.”

Crowe, who’d already intuited where this might lead, said, “What every devotee of international cuisine seeks – something to tease and delight the palate.”

She turned her almond eyes on him. “We can satisfy all your cravings – depending on your appetite and the time to indulge – in a single meal.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Blaikie said. “It makes my mouth water just listening to you.”

“That makes two of us.” She smiled and dipped her torso as she turned his wine glass upright, giving him a better view down her dress. “There’s a gentleman’s lounge on the second floor where you can sample some appetizers, or private rooms on the third where you can order anything you want. If you like, I can be your personal tour guide.”

Blaikie fanned himself with his menu. “Thank you, but for the moment, we’ll just try the food.”

“That’s fine. We hope your Thai High experience is a memorable one. I’ll be back in a minute with your drinks.”

Blaikie and Crowe watched her walk away, the high heels making her hips swing hypnotically. After she’d passed through the bamboo grove to the bar, they turned back to their menus.

“What was that all about?” Blaikie said.

“We can speculate later,” Crowe said. “Let’s figure out what to eat.”

The waitress returned with their drinks. “Ready to order, or did you want to go upstairs for an appetizer or two?”

“Roast duck in red curry,” Blaikie said.

“Ginger shrimp for me,” Crowe said. Although he was for the most part a vegetarian, he occasionally refreshed his memory of how good well-prepared seafood tasted.

She nodded and walked away without another word. Obviously, they weren’t worth wasting any more of her charm.

“Did you know about this place?” Crowe said. “Not the restaurant, but the so-called gentleman’s club and the private rooms upstairs?”

“No, but it wouldn’t be the first place to offer a full-service business. In the nineties there was Caligula on the Upper West Side, a swinger’s club with restaurant and bar, rooms rented by the hour. Just before nine-eleven there was a place in SoHo called Kama Sutra, a restaurant and bar with private rooms for expanding your sexual consciousness.”

“How were they?”

“I never went to either, but I know people who did. That whole love-for-hire business isn’t for me. It smacks of desperation. I’d rather be celibate.”

Their food arrived. They ate with gusto and caught up on news. Blaikie’s parents were a concern these days. Since his sister’s death last year, his already-frail mother had spiraled into Alzheimer’s, while his father had developed mobility problems. Crowe was sympathetic, but the contrast with his younger and healthier parents made him grateful.

During their meal they noticed several men – singles, pairs and once a foursome – led by a hostess behind a bamboo wall near the bar, where they disappeared. Curious, Crowe visited the washroom and made a detour to look behind the bamboo wall. He saw an alcove with an elevator door and a numeric keypad. He pressed the elevator button but the door didn’t open, possibly needing a code to access the upper floors.

“Find anything?” Blaikie asked when Crowe returned.

“Maybe the door to Pandora’s Box.”

“Want to take a peek?”

“My imagination can fill in the blanks.”

“Isn’t a picture worth a thousand words?”

Crowe laughed. “Maybe you just want an excuse to go.”

“Just trying to help.” Blaikie leaned forward. “If you think this might lead to something that could get your friend out of jail, we should check it out.”

Crowe looked at his watch. Nine thirty. The ascendant had changed about ten minutes ago, from Libra to Scorpio. The Rahu-Ketu axis now lay along the horizon, inviting experimentation, novelty, the exotic, the forbidden. The Moon and Venus, both strong in Taurus, were still above the western horizon, suggesting a connection to be made via a woman. And Mars was overhead, urging action...

“Okay, let’s do it.”

When the waitress removed their plates, Blaikie told her they’d take a digestif upstairs. A few minutes later, she returned with their bill. Blaikie glanced at it.

“The additional two hundred dollars...?”

“For the gentleman’s lounge. The first drink is complimentary.”

Blaikie gave her his credit card. She used a remote unit to complete the transaction, and gave him a receipt. She beckoned for them to follow.

~~~

In the alcove, the waitress pressed three numbers on the keypad to access the elevator. Crowe looked up and saw a tiny camera in the corner of the elevator car. The door opened on the floor above and they entered a lounge. It was carpeted, with shuttered windows, clusters of leather furniture separated by dividers. The ambient music featured oriental flute with jazzy inflection.

She led them past a bar where two female bartenders mixed drinks. Girls in sarongs and high heels – all Thai beauties – circulated among the patrons. Through a gap between dividers, Crowe saw a man getting a lap dance in a deep leather chair. Their waitress guided them into an enclosure with a love seat and two club chairs in red leather. Blaikie settled into a chair, Crowe in the love seat.

“What would you like to drink?” she asked.

Blaikie ordered two cognacs, knowing that if Crowe declined to drink, he’d have a double.

“Been here before?” she asked. “Anyone you’d like to see again?”

Now wasn’t the time to mention Kitti Poornchai, but if Crowe followed the trail of the planets, he might find what he was looking for. With both Moon and Venus in Taurus, it was a young woman. He used a technique associating sounds with the signs of the zodiac.

“A friend told me about a girl here. I forget her name, but it began with ‘ch’. Something like Chastity, Cherry, China...?”

“Chandra?”

“That’s her!” Crowe felt like he’d won the lottery. Not only did the name begin with a phoneme associated with Taurus, but Chandra was literally the Sanskrit name for the Moon.

“Let me see if she’s available.”

A bar-girl brought their cognacs on a tray. Blaikie sampled his and nodded approval. Crowe left his untouched.

Five minutes later, a girl appeared. She was just what Crowe had anticipated – young, lush and slightly deranged. She wore a mini-sarong with high heels accentuating the line of her legs. Except for her breasts, she was slim, verging on anorexic. Her face was beautiful but the look in her eyes suggested poor sleep and nervous exhaustion. She smiled and looked from Blaikie to Crowe.

“You like another girl to join us?” she asked with an accent.

“You’re all I want, Chandra.” Crowe patted the love seat, beckoning her to sit beside him. “My friend is celibate.”

Blaikie rolled his eyes and sipped his cognac.

Crowe took her right hand in his. She had a slim palm with long pliable fingers – a water hand – emotional and susceptible to influence. In Chandra’s hand, where the head and heart lines normally were, a single line spanned her palm. The simian line. Nineteenth century palmists saw it as a sign of sub-standard intelligence, but the idea still carried weight in modern palmistry.

“You have warm hands,” Chandra said.

“You have poor circulation,” Crowe said.

“You saying I have a cold heart?”

“Not cold, just hurt.”

She lowered her eyes. He scanned her palm for individuating features. Her little finger was short, crooked and askew. Sexual trauma, probably rape, possibly at the hands of a family member. In the heel of her palm was a horizontal mark called visha rekha. The poison line was a red flag for substance abuse. He looked in her eyes. The lighting was dim, and brown eyes hard to penetrate, but he saw flecks of gold in her iris and knew she had an addiction. These were the chains that bound her.

She withdrew her hand and placed it on his thigh. “You want to come upstairs with me?”

“Let me get to know you first.” Crowe lifted her hand from his thigh and held it lightly, his fingers curled around her wrist. “Where are you from in Thailand?”

“Ko Lanta.”

Crowe knew it, a large island in the south. “I was there a few years before the tsunami. Were you there when it happened?”

“Yes.”

“Did you lose family?”

“My mother, two sisters and a brother.”

“And everything changed after that.” A world turned upside-down, left in the care of a father who’d lost his wife, his desperation a petri dish in which nasty things might have flourished...

She nodded.

“Do you know Kitti?”

She looked at him, expression frozen, lips parted but nothing coming out. Sometimes silence did speak volumes. Furthermore, the hop and skip of her pulse beneath his fingertips told him the answer.

“Is she here?”

She hesitated, and he gave her wrist a sharp squeeze. He hated to treat her like this, but she’d been conditioned to behave in certain ways, and without a stick or its threat, there’d be no response.

“No.”

“Where can I find her?”

She shrugged. “Long Island.”

“Long Island is big. What town?”

“Babylon.”

“What’s the address?”

“I don’t remember. It’s near the highway.”

“Describe the house.”

“Ordinary. Two stories, an attached garage.”

“When did you see her last?”

She shook her head as if trying to clear her memory. “Two weeks ago.”

Crowe released her wrist.

She looked at him. “You want to come upstairs with me?”

“No. I have to be home in bed by eleven.”

She laughed. “You big boy. You should stay and play with me.”

“We’re not into the same games.”

“I play everything. You have a special game? I learn fast.”

“I’m sure you do.” Crowe stood.

She turned to Blaikie. “What about you, mister? Upstairs I show you everything.”

“Sorry, I’m his chauffeur. When he leaves, I go too.” Blaikie took a few bills from his wallet and pressed them into her hand. “But thank you for the offer. You’re a beautiful young woman.”

“Maybe you prefer lady boy? She is busy right now but maybe in half an hour...?”

“Thank you, no trannies.”

Blaikie was still shaking his head as he and Crowe descended in the elevator. They left the restaurant and returned to the car.

On the way back to Washington Square, Crowe said, “How can I find out who owns Thai High?”

“Business registry office. I know a guy. I’ll make a call.”

“I really appreciate it.”

“I’m still trying to pay you back for Janis last year,” Blaikie said. “And let’s face it, my life is pretty boring. If it weren’t for living vicariously through your adventures, I’d have nothing to contribute in cocktail hour conversations.”

Photo credit: Anything Goes With James English, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Andrew Tate (born December 1, 1986, in Washington, DC) is an American-British former professional kickboxer and social media influencer known for promoting controversial views on masculinity. After retiring from kickboxing, he and his brother Tristan built a lucrative webcam business in Romania before expanding into online education ventures such as Hustler’s University (later The Real World) and The War Room. His outspoken style has earned him millions of followers, widespread criticism for misogynistic rhetoric, and bans from several social media platforms.

Since 2022, Tate has faced multiple criminal and civil legal proceedings in Romania, the UK, and the USA. The allegations include rape, human trafficking, organized crime, assault, tax evasion, money laundering, possession of child pornography, and related offenses. Investigations have expanded over time, with additional charges filed in the UK in 2025 and 2026. As of mid-2026, Tate is in U.S. custody following his arrest in Miami and faces extradition proceedings to the UK. He and his brother have consistently denied all allegations and charges. Meanwhile, some Romanian proceedings remain unresolved due to procedural delays, while several UK investigations and prosecutions continue.

Since Tate’s birth time is unknown, this is a Chandra-lagna horoscope calculated for the minute that the Moon appeared on the eastern horizon. At this juncture it’s prudent to remind ourselves of the different perspectives afforded by sudarshan, ie, the view from the natural ascendant, the Moon, and the Sun:

• Udaya-lagna (using a timed birth): the objective perspective on mundane (real-world) circumstances and events

• Chandra-lagna: the mental/emotional perspective on one’s circumstances

• Surya-lagna: the egotistic/spiritual perspective on one’s circumstances

Tate’s horoscope features a relatively rare Class 2 Kala Sarpa configuration wherein no other grahas occupy the same signs as the lunar nodes, while the remaining saptagrahas are spread unevenly across the intervening five signs. This pattern occurs less than 2% of the time across all horoscopes. As such, it fulfills the classical dictum regarding its formation and, arguably, its malignant nature.

Kala Sarpa often acts as an amplifier of what already exists, good or bad, in the horoscope. Therefore, it’s useful at the outset to briefly list the avasthas for the saptagrahas:

• The Sun, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are all ordinary by virtue of the standard criteria: sign placement, brightness and directional strength

• Venus is strong because it occupies its own sign

• Saturn is weak because it’s combust within three degrees of the Sun

• The Moon is extremely weak (and therefore malefic) because it’s both debilitated and completely devoid of light in Krishna Amavasya tithi

From Chandra-lagna, we note the presence of multiple yogas:

• Raja yoga (9/10) formed by the Sun and Moon in association

• Raja yoga (4/9) formed by the Moon and Saturn in association

• Dharma-Karma Adhipati yoga (1/5) formed by Mars and Jupiter in association

• Dhana yoga (1/2) formed by Mars and Jupiter in association

• Kesari yoga formed by the Moon and Jupiter in mutual kendras

• Parivartana yoga (1/4) formed by Mars and Saturn in mutual reception

The presence of multiple positive yogas (Raja, DKA, Dhana) has provided Tate the ability to achieve considerable success in his ventures. And yet some of these yogas are quite weak (eg, Moon/Saturn) by virtue of their individual and combined avasthas, which thus suggest a fly in the ointment. Morals and ethics, for example, are seriously compromised because both 4th lord Saturn and 9th lord Moon are in a weakened state.

Relationships are fundamentally sexual, as evidenced by the typical pro forma of analysis. The 7th lord (and karaka) Venus, albeit swa-rashi and stabilized by benefics Mercury and Jupiter, has gone to the 12th house. Meanwhile, the 7th house from Chandra-lagna is horribly afflicted – by the Sun, Mars, Saturn and even the Moon rendered functionally malefic by its darkness.

Picture credit: Kadumago, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

And perhaps therein lies the key to Tate’s misogyny – his profoundly impoverished Moon. As many know, the Moon is a karaka for the manas, that aspect of the mind that governs autonomic physical responses, emotions, perceptions, and our consequent attractions and aversions.

The influence of Saturn or either of the nodes on the 4th house (the domain of the manas), the 4th lord, or its karaka Moon are destabilizing, and therefore precursors to dysfunctional behavior.

In Tate’s Chandra-lagna chart, his 4th lord is Saturn, which isn’t a problem, since it’s natural for both Libra and Scorpio lagnas to have a Saturn-ruled sign on the 4th house. But Saturn is totally combust within three degrees of the Sun, and that’s a distinct weakness.

His 4th house is occupied by Mars and Jupiter, neither graha posing a problem until we note that Mars occupies a nakshatra ruled by Rahu, which is another contributing irritant for destabilization of the manas.

In due course we return to inspect the Moon as karaka for the manas and therein discover the nub of the problem. As noted earlier, the Moon is both debilitated and dark, either of which condition is contributory to negative moods, perceptions, thoughts and, ultimately, behaviors. Furthermore, the Moon is associated with Saturn and occupies a nakshatra ruled by Saturn.

Saturn is notoriously cold, calculating, and controlling, and is associated with bondage, cruelty, punishment, restraint, and submission, all of which became facets of the playbook taught by Tate in his Hustler’s University curriculum, much to the despair of many women who fell under his spell.

These observations are all duplicated when we note that Chandra-lagna and Surya-lagna are one and the same, lending a weight of evidence to the karmic and psychological forces in play.

Although we shouldn’t assign much weight to its house position, Venus is Tate’s current dasha lord, and its placement in the 12th house from both Chandra- and Surya-lagna presents some of that bhava’s themes: sexuality, foreign residency, and incarceration.

More speculatively, based on this Moon-rising “birth time” he would be running Rahu bhukti, which evokes the promise and peril of the entire Kala Sarpa configuration. The image of the esoteric ouroboros, the snake swallowing its own tail may be symbolic, but serves to remind us: What goes around comes around.