20.9.20

Predicting the American election with asteroids

Predictive astrology is hard. Richard Tarnas explains it like this: "astrology is archetypally predictive". Meaning you can only predict in a general sense which kinds of qualitative influences are to be expected at a certain moment. You can see which dice will be rolling, but the numbers they're going to land on are anyone's guess.

Having said that, predicting the outcome of an election is always good fun. Even if one of the candidates is Donald Trump. The aim of this post is to come up with a prediction based on the movements of certain asteroids and dwarf planets. Not because this method is the most reliable one, or better than Method X, but simply because asteroids and dwarf planets are a fresh new part of astrology. Curiosity is the only motivation you need to try this at home.

On the other hand, it's totally impossible to ignore the effect of the Saturn-Pluto cycle and the Jupiter-Pluto cycle. Saturn and Pluto are largely 'responsible' for the 2020 sh%tshow, and Jupiter is tightly conjunct Pluto as well during the election. Dynamite! We also have to keep in mind that this presidential election is already a big mess. A substantial part of US politics has become dangerously nihilistic in recent months. American 'democracy' has always been a shady business, but Mr. Trump is trying to change the rules and fudge the numbers in fairly unprecedented ways.

Assumptions
The current political instability in the US forces us to make a few explicit assumptions about the astrological data that will be presented. We'll simply assume that the 3rd of November 2020 will be presidential election day, and the 20th of January 2021 will be inauguration day. If these assumptions turn out to be wrong, everything that's written below will be a case of projection ;-)           



Too many asteroids?
Some astrologers think of asteroids as frivolous astrological confetti. That's a mistake but hey, people make mistakes. Others don't like the numbers. Yes, there are probably close to a million asteroids and dwarfs dancing around in our solar system. That doesn't mean we have to work with all of them. Think of the fixed stars. There are many more fixed stars than there are asteroids in our solar system. And yet it is possible, according to name brand astrologer Bernadette Brady, to get practical results using around 60 'important' stars.

The point of asteroid analysis is to spot potentially significant synchronicities and somewhat hidden clues, mostly on a relatively small scale. A bunch of small indicators pointing in the same direction can build confidence. Overall, the key to good asteroid astrology is to work systematically. Having asteroid Sherlock (5049) on a strategic position in your natal chart probably helps as well.



Benjamin Adamah
Dutch astrologer Benjamin Adamah has created a comprehensive, systematic and psychologically deep compendium of asteroid delineations. He works with over 1000 asteroids. That's more than enough for most practical purposes. His asteroid work was written in Dutch, but the first English translation of a part of his Dutch tome Asteroïden Gids is now available: Centaurs, Damocloids & Scattered Disc Objects got a nice review in the Mountain Astrologer recently and more translations are in the pipeline.

Some general principles for asteroid astroloy
The ideas below are my own. I'm quite sure that Benjamin would use different methods.

1. Create a somewhat systematic selection of asteroids to work with.
For example, you can select objects according to physical size, or you can select a bunch of asteroids with numbers below 500, which means they were discovered in the early years of asteroid astronomy. If you want to dive deep into the subconscious, include Centaurs, Plutino's, Cubewano's and other more distant objects. The selection of around 1000 asteroids that i use for this post is firmly based on Benjamin Adamah's work, with a few extra's (personal favorites).

2. Check for 1 degree conjunctions.
If you're looking at a natal chart, you should first find all of 'your' selected asteroids that are within 1 degree conjunct planets. If you're looking at a specific time, check the angles as well. This yields a bunch of relatively 'important' asteroids. Don't use asteroids outside the 1 degree boundary unless they are screaming at you.

3. Collect a bunch of relevant significators.
In the extended toolbox of asteroid astrology we find all kinds of interesting 'significator' asteroids like Donn (4689), Donald Duck (12410), McDonalda (991), Troemper (28130), Mike Penston (46441), Josephina (303), Josefa (649), Old Joe (10515), Bida (32014), Boyden (4301), Khama (1357), Harris (2929), Whitehouse (4036), Washingtonia (886), America (916) and so on. If we watch their movements, for example in charts related to the US elections, we might notice something interesting about signified people or places.

Donn would be the smooth operator, Troemper the dictator, Donald Duck the trickster and McDonalda the Trump family business. Unfortunately, Joe Biden's significators are more difficult to describe. Harris seems to work reliable enough, while Mike Pence is virtually invisible. (Credit to Alex's Asteroid Astrology for inspiration. Make sure you check out his work with many of these same asteroids.)



4. Use sieves.
If you're actively using hundreds of asteroids, you can sub-categorize them thematically. Useful themes for sub-categorization might include 'dwarf planets', 'centaurs', 'the Greek pantheon', 'politics', 'war and crime', 'love and sex', 'spirituality', 'creativity' and so on.

I like to call these subgroups sieves. That's just a visually correct metaphor. If you're a martial Sagittarius, you may want to think of this technique in terms of a 'scattergun approach'. Personally speaking, that kind of metaphor would seem a bit too aggressive.

For this post, a sieve i like to call 'competition' was used. It contains around 100 asteroids that are in some sense related to the theme of winning ~ losing. It can be used to predict the outcome of important soccer games, high profile presidential elections and so on.

There are two ways to approach the sieving process. The traditional one would be to look at the harmonic aspects that the sieve-asteroids are making in a certain chart. But here's a bit of special sauce, a homegrown method that has been demonstrated before on this blog, for both planets and asteroids (an example based on dwarf planets is in the pipeline). You can use the 14 Golden Aspects or Φ-angles as defined by the almost forgotten genius Theodor Landscheidt to find even more relevant asteroids for any chart. The procedure is simple: grab a chart, populate it with your sieve and count how many Golden Aspects each asteroid makes. The highest scoring asteroids are the ones you want to pay attention to. For this procedure, an even tighter orb of 0.75 might sometimes be necessary. Especially if your choice of asteroids is all over the place from the nearby Aten and Apollo asteroids to Main Belters, Centaurs, Haumeïds and so on.



To fine-tune a large thematical 'Golden Sieve' (over 50 objects), use it on a bunch of charts with very distinctive features. Evaluate, try to improve by adding other asteroids to the mix, repeat. If you're getting at least 75% accuracy for the 10% highest scoring asteroids in those distinctive charts, you're ok. This is not exact science, it's about extra serendipity and it's rewarding in that respect. By the way, interested software developers you're welcome to contact me.

5. Recommended harmonic aspects
Now that you have identified all 'important' asteroids, you can interpret them systematically, using the canonical qualities of the conjunction, 2nd harmonic (opposition), 3rd harmonic (trine), 4th harmonic (square) and fifth harmonic (quintile) in combination with the proper archetypal meaning of each asteroid involved in the story you're looking at. Naive first impressions (McDonalda is conjunct Victoria!) may seriously compromise the validity of your conclusions.

US 2016 presidential election
In a moment we'll concentrate on the noon chart for the 3rd of November 2020, but to get some understanding of how the significator asteroids work, it's a good idea to first check out what was happening on 8 November 2016, the previous election day, when Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost.  



Below are the interactions of the competition-asteroids and relevant significator asteroids, using the Washington D.C. noon chart for 8 November 2016: 

1st harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Nike (victory) 0°05'
Hillary ~ Kaiser (emperor) 0°21'
Hillary ~ Gratia (being thankful) 0°18'
(note that Kaiser and Gratia are opposite Pluto)
Boyden ~ Phaeton (out of control) 0°42'
Harris ~ King 0°04'
Harris ~ Winer (whining) 0°09'
Harris ~ Phoinix (start again) 0°45'

2nd harmonic
McDonalda ~ Crescentia (growth) 0°39'
Khama ~ Pholus (dangerous domino effect) 0°34'
Josephina ~ Achilles (vulnerability) 0°40'

3rd harmonic
Hillary ~ Sun (self, life) 0°03'
Hillary ~ Lozere (loser) 0°24'
Troemper ~ Serendip (lucky shot) 0°32'
McDonalda ~ Grieve (grief) 0°24'
Bida ~ Atropos (endings) 0°18'
Josephina ~ Tyche (getting lucky) 0°27'
Josephina ~ NOT (negation) 0°13'
Josefa ~ Yes (affirmation) 0°31'
Josefa ~ Gluck (happiness) 0°14'

4th harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Justitia (justice) 0°55'
McDonalda ~ Whashingtonia 0°53'
Bida ~ McDonalda 0°46'
Bida ~ Crescentia 0°07'
Khama ~ TRIUMF (wanting to win) 0°52'
Khama ~ Richthammer (cut the crap) 0°58'

5th harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Damocles (system about to be overthrown) 0°46'
Donald Duck ~ Themis (natural sense of order)  0°40'
Donald Duck ~ Fruits (what you reap) 0°59'
Donn ~ Hybris (overconfident) 0°50'
Troemper ~ Lachesis (endings) 0°39'
Hillary ~ Attila (fierce, agressive politician) 0°06'
Bida ~ Hinderer (obstruction) 0°40'
Josephina ~ Hinderer 0°49'
Harris ~ Felicia (happiness) 0°28'

In hindsight, we may conclude that the significators do tell the story, but a naive interpretation will fail horribly. Most notably, Hillary conjunct Kaiser and Gratia is not about what actually happened, but about what most people expected to happen. On the other hand, Donald Duck conjunct Nike and Hillary trine Lozere point to the actual outcome as it happened in 2016.   

Conjunction of the candidates
Let's switch to Nostradamus-mode and look at the same asteroids, but this time for November 3rd 2020, Washington D.C. at noon.



1st harmonic
Donn ~ Khama ~ Bida ~ Boyden (the candidates)
McDonalda ~ Victoria (winner) 0°54'
Josephina ~ Melete (fear) 0°20'
Harris ~ Hilaritas (fun, high spirits) 0°21'
America ~ Red Queen (losing one's head) 0°41'
America ~ Lozere 0°11'
Pholus ~ Red Queen 0°31'
Pholus ~ Lozere 0°27'
Pholus ~ Icarus (genius, or fall) 0°46'
Washingtonia ~ Orcus Vanth (reality check) 0°17' 

2nd harmonic
Troemper ~ Morden ('killer' type victory) 0°41'

3rd harmonic
Donn, Khama, Bida, Boyden ~ TRIUMF
Troemper ~ Tyche 0°50'
Troemper ~ Caesar 0°09'
Troemper ~ Grieve 0°47'
Old Joe ~ Atropos 0°11'
Harris ~ Pluto 0°30'
Whitehouse ~ Achilles 0°18'

4th harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Melancholia 0°03'
Donald Duck ~ Achilles 0°10'
Donald Duck ~ Aphopis (threat) 0°46'
McDonalda ~ Caesar (emperor) 0°55'
McDonalda ~ Abundantia (abundance) 0°38'
McDonalda ~ Felicitas 0°25'
Harris ~ Lumen (sudden end of political career) 0°04'
Whitehouse ~ Kaiser 0°56'
America ~ Populus (the people) 0°05'

5th harmonic
Donn, Khama, Bida, Boyden ~ Nike (victory) 0°05'/0°36'
Donn, Khama, Bida, Boyden ~ Achilles 0°12'/0°23'
Troemper ~ Achilles 0°54'
Donald Duck ~ Klotho 0°04'
Old Joe ~ Harris 0°04'
Old Joe ~ Crantor (unexpected ending) 0°04'
Harris ~ Records (setting a record) 0°29'

Interpretation
First of all, it's quite clear that on the 3rd of November 2020 everybody wil claim victory (Nike, TRIUMF). Looking at the conjunctions you could naively conclude that Trump wins. Looking at the opposition, you could say that Trump didn't really kill the competition so to speak. Looking at the squares, you'd say that Trump might even loose. In other words: we need more info.



Trump's inauguration in 2017
Let's take another look at the same asteroids, but this time on the day of Trump's inauguration. For this event we have an exact time: 11:41 a.m. EST. The elephant in the room is Pluto, dead straight on the ascendant, and asteroid King almost in the same degree. 

1st harmonic
McDonalda ~ Themis 0°06'
McDonalda ~ Hybris 0°30'
Troemper ~ Swift 0°06'
Hillary ~ Melancholia 0°30'
Hillary ~ Kaiser 0°50'

2nd harmonic
Donn ~ Gratia 0°01'
Troemper ~ Hazard 0°15'
Hillary ~ Nike 0°19'
Hillary ~ Phoinix 0°04'
Josefa ~ Serendip 0°46'
Khama ~ Gold 0°34'

3rd harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Siegena (victory) 0°04'
Donald Duck ~ Hinderer 0°21'
Donald Duch ~ Orcus Vanth 0°08'
Hillary ~ Tyson (punch) 0°02'
Hillary ~ Nessus 0°09'
Hillary ~ Tyche 0°33'
Josephina ~ Felicitas 0°57'
Washingtonia ~ Lozere 0°14'

4th harmonic
Donald Duck ~ Swift 0°43'
Donald Duck ~ Hazard (sudden end of career) 0°52'
Hillary ~ Felicitas 0°31'
Josephina ~ Nessus (invasion) 0°18'
Josephina ~ Tyson 0°28'
Josephina ~ Champion 0°53'
Josefa ~ Yes 0°03'
Josefa ~ Phaeton 0°33'
Harris ~ Gluck 0°07'

5th harmonic
Troemper ~ Aeternitas (everlasting fame) 0°46'
Troemper ~ Caesar 0°48'
Donald Duck ~ Fortuna (wheel of fortune) 0°59'
Old Joe ~ Fortuna 0°33'
Bida ~ Felicitas 0°28'
Josefa ~ Victoria 0°41'
Josefa ~ Ohno 0°13'
Josefa ~ Melete 0°20'
Harris ~ Lozere 0°46'

Inauguration 2021
Now let's compare this to the noon chart of the inauguration on January 20th 2021, Washington D.C.

1st harmonic
Boyden ~ Red Queen 0°10'
Old Joe ~ Themis (natural sense of order) 0°05'
Old Joe ~ Reich (rich) 0°11'

2nd harmonic
Bida ~ Justitia 0°42'
Boyden ~ Crescentia 0°45'
Old Joe ~ Serendip 0°55'
Josefa ~ Hinderer 0°34'

3rd harmonic
Troemper ~ Starr 0°17'
Donald Duck ~ Washingtonia 0°01'
McDonalda ~ Atropos 0°35'
Bida ~ Records 0°54'
Bida ~ Martir 0°25'
Harris ~ Bienor (earned fame) 0°35'
Harris ~ Alauda (optimism) 0°22'
Whitehouse ~ Tyson 0°23'
America ~ Hilaritas 0°10'

4th harmonic
Troemper ~ Josephina 0°48'
McDonalda ~ Bida 0°39'
McDonalda ~ Justitia 0°03'
Donald Duck ~ Tyche 0°06'
Donald Duck ~ Tyson 0°52'
Donald Duck ~ Gratia 0°58'
Donn ~ Lachesis 0°24'
Josefa ~ Melancholia 0°22'
Josefa ~ Fortuna 0°57'

5th harmonic
Troemper ~ Nessus 0°19'
McDonalda ~ Gold 0°07'
Donn ~ Eris 0°33'
Donn ~ Nemesis 0°46'
Donn ~ Phoinix 0°33'
Donn ~ Populus 1°00'
Old Joe ~ Machiavelli 0°06'
Old Joe ~ Tyche 0°39'
Old Joe ~ Eureka 0°26'
Josephina ~ Victoria 0°07'
Josephina ~ Sparks 0°02'
Josephina ~ King 0°31'
Bida ~ TRIUMF 0°27'
Harris ~ Crescentia 0°37'
Khama ~ Ohno 0°08'
Whitehouse ~ Melancholia 0°14'

This doesn't look bad for Biden and Harris:

  • the conjunctions point to Biden;
  • the oppositions are tough, but could be thought of as what Biden would have to deal with as a president;
  • the nastiest trine is for McDonalda, possibly a Tysonian punch for Whitehouse while Harris is looking good;
  • the squares are undecided, but can be seen as Trump refusing to give up the fight;
  • the quintiles are again looking quite warlike for Trump, and fairly positive for Biden.


Conclusion

Looking at the charts of election day and inauguration day (while limiting astrological variables to strictly harmonic aspects of 'competition-related' asteroids and significators), Biden and Harris would seem to have the upper hand. This can not be seen in the election day chart. What we do get from this chart is that both sides will claim victory: the conjunction of the candidates is remarkable.

On the 20th of Januari 2021, Trump's significators are still very much in a fighting mood. Quite possibly because of a refusal to accept defeat. All 4th harmonics for Trump's significators could be interpreted this way. Biden is possibly more worried about the mess he will have to manage. The 5th harmonics hint at civil unrest accompanying Trump's fight: Donn the smooth talking fun loving criminal working the Populus against their Nemesis and hoping for a Phoenix while Troemper the dictator behaves like a nasty Nessus.

Coda Red: general astrological weather
We'll finish this with a look at the general astrological weather during election day and inauguration day.

On election day Red Queen is conjunct Pholus (dangerous domino effect) and America, increasing instability as Red Queen is about losing one's head. Leviathan (fake news, disinfo) conjunct Sun takes care of disinformation, with nearby Fox conjunct Hazard (danger). Meanwhile Eris (strife) is conjunct Phoinix (rebirth) and opposite Nike (victory): the fight for victory and rebirth has only just begun with Machiavelli (dirty politics) trining Nemesis (arch rival) and Pales (ritual cleansing) trining Whitehouse. Typhon will be conjunct the Sun as well, so expect some heavy weather in every sense of the word. 

Using a 'Golden Sieve' containing 25 dwarf planets (orb 2,5) we find that the strongest influence in the Washington D.C. noon chart for the 3rd of November 2020 is Pholus, which is ominous. Technically Pholus is not a dwarf planet, but it's included in this sieve with Nessus because of the measurable (violent) impact these two can have.



On the other hand, using the same sieve, we find that the strongest influence in the Washington D.C. noon chart for the 20th of January 2021 comes from Ceres, Haumea and Makemake. Ceres and Haumea are related to fertility, with Haumea accenting rebirth and ecological values, while Makemake is connected to extreme technology. Donald Trump is not an ecologist, so this is favoring Joe Biden in some sense, altho this mix can point to plans for a 'technogeddon' in eco-disguise.

For context, looking back at Trump's inauguration in 2017 we find a strong Lempo (which is actually counter-intuitive, as Lempo is about being of service) accompanied by Eris, Altjira and Rhadamantus: working the collective subconscious using radical ethics and strife.

Now let's double check this using a sieve i like to call 'politics and power'. Top scores on Trump's inauguration for Veritas (truth-o-meter), Metis (cunning strategy), Attila (ruthless leader), Ate (looking for trouble), Salpeter (explosive, tipping point). Same sieve, inauguration 2021: Themis (sense of natural order), Veritas (truth-o-meter), Enos (human development, getting rid of parasitic energy).

Benjamin Adamah connects Enos to the Haumea-Makemake dichotomy and thinks of Enos as it's synthesis. That makes sense.

I'd bet three crates of premium Dutch beer on Old Joe and Khama.