Our second cousins in modern astrology tend to spend a lot of time on studying transits to which they ascribe a lot of importance. Traditional astrologers however are much less enthousiastic about the fast-moving planets which every day make a lot of aspects on natal factors. The reason is that most of these fleeting connections happen without any notable effects at all. The planets from the Moon to Mars move at a high speed and they make a host of aspects, which can therefore be ignored without loosing anything of significance. At best that Mars going over your descendant will bring some persistent seller of an energy contract to your door-step.
The aspects made by the slower planets Saturn and Jupiter are worth some more attention, especially conjunctions and oppositions and so is the Saturn cycle. But there is always one very important condition, their effects should be assessed within the framework of other astrological developments as shown by techniques of a higher order, the Firdaria, the progressions/directions, the solar returns and profections and the lunar returns. By checking the lunar returns you can, if you see something important is going to happen in a year, find the month this will take place and then, not earlier, you can investigate the transits to get the week or even the day of this event. That is the only way to use transits that makes sense.
This also has consequences for charts of dramatic events, its does not make much sense to delineate for example the 9/11 event chart. Such an event chart is only the very, very ,very last step in the hierarchical analysis of other mundane charts. A good example of such a hierarchy is the murder of Olof Palme about which we wrote last week. Now his progressions/directions, solar/lunar returns and profections all showed big trouble at that moment, belief me. So our “Court Astrologer” perspective is that we know the month (by checking the lunar returns) of maximum danger, could we find the week or even the day he would be murdered by looking at the transits?
The time Olof Palme was shot is known exactly and the chart above (click on the download buttton to view it, in last week’s post you will find Palme’s natal chart) is calculated for this time. What strikes the eye, is Great Malefic Saturn on royal Death Star Antares, in his natal chart Saturn is close to Antares too. Saturn is turning retrograde so it will be there for a long time, this cannot give you the week or the day, but it certainly is an indication of danger. It is the faster planets that give you give you more detailed information and Mars is moving over Palme’s natal Ascendant! As Mars has a high speed that scales us down to a few days, half a week of extreme tension.The movements of the other fast planets the Sun, Mercury and Venus do not show too much but the super-fast Moon does!
If you know by Mars’ movement the week of maximum danger, the Moon can indicate the day. The day before the murder the Moon entered the Burnt Road (15° Libra to 15 °Scorpio) where the Moon is very instable increasing emotions and impulses (the Burnt Road is like a zodiacal Full Moon), this is a very nasty passage for the Moon (and only for the Moon!). On the day of the murder the Moon is still in the dangerous Burnt Road but now it also is in its fall in Scorpio making things even worse and at the exact time of the murder this Burnt Moon is on Pluto, the swiftly and unexpectedly striking Lord of the Underworld. The Moon is then passing over malefic Khambalia, the “crooked-clawed” a star of an appropriate Mars-Merury nature, associated with “swift violence”. The very fast MC is on Regulus the Lion-King killed by Hercules. If transits are dealt with in this way they certainly make a lot of sense.