Will Donald Trump Win the Presidency? An Astrological Guide

“In the exploration of planetary cycles and their relationship with history, it seems to me that the brazen rejection of astrology is daringly audacious. It is true that “It’s harder to crack a prejudice than an atom”” (Einstein)

Arthur Dent, Going Postal
Partial Solar Eclipse of October 23, 2014
“Partial Solar Eclipse of October 23, 2014” by Joshua Tree National Park is marked with CC PDM 1.0

In writing an article about astrology I know I will be up against lots of scepticism and ridicule. That’s fine, I’m used to swimming against the tide of opinion in life. I am a Brexiteer and a Trump supporter after all, I have voted for every UK political party apart from the Conservatives and Labour, and even once went to a Phil Collins gig. I’m used to sitting quietly in a room or videocall in an apparent minority of one, while people loudly mock everything I believe in, and I have reached the time in my life where I really don’t give a toss.

Most people’s exposure to and opinions of astrology will be the result of laughing at star sign columns in newspapers or magazines. Judging astrology by these is a little like thinking that you have a grasp of the entire field of mathematics if you know how to add and subtract single digit numbers, or that the entire sweep of 20th century politics can be understood by studying the life and times of Roy Hattersley, or that you are a beer connoisseur having spent a lifetime drinking nothing other than Stella Artois. There is a lot more to real astrology than dividing humanity up into twelve and making sweeping generalisations about everyone, as those star sign columns try to do.

For the purposes of this article, which is ultimately about Donald Trump’s chances of re-election, I’m not going to try too hard to provide lots of evidence of whether there is truth in astrology a) because I believe you need to understand quite a lot about astrology before you know enough to discount it (or not), b) because I’d be wasting my time with the majority of you and c) I don’t really give a toss whether you believe in it or not.

And if you came here to find the answer to the question at the top of the page, the “Too Long, Didn’t Read” version of this article is as follows:

Having cast an astrological horary chart, I predict that Donald J Trump will continue as President having won re-election with significant help from the US legal system. Furthermore, Joe Biden will not go to jail at least in the short term and will probably live out a comfortable but rather forgetful old age despite his defeat, but some of his associates will not fare so well.

You can now speed your way to the comments no-one reads…

But if you’re still curious, and want to learn a bit more about how I used astrology to come to this bombshell conclusion, there are a few basics about astrology I will need to explain first.

  1. Astrology is the ancient study of the correlation between the movements of planets across the sky and events down here on Earth (note it is only interested in correlation and doesn’t address causality in any way even if the lazy terminology used by some astrologers suggests otherwise)
  2. Astrology is very old. Its origins can be traced back to several thousands of years BC
  3. Middle Eastern, Incan, Mayan and Mexican civilizations, amongst others, identified the planets visible to the naked eye as gods with various names and personalities, and identified that their movements against the background pattern of the stars had some correlation with events on earth.
  4. Much of the basis of astrology as we understand it today derives from Babylon, where the concept of the zodiac, the division of the apparent path of the Sun across the sky into 12 named equal sections was defined around 500BC.
  5. Royal courts often had their own astrologer who would be consulted by the King or Queen about auspicious times to go into battle or other important matters. And court astrologers were routinely executed or tortured if they got it wrong, hence they were notoriously unwilling to rush to judgement unless they were absolutely certain about something.
  6. So astrology has been around a long time. If there was no value in it, you’d have thought it might have died out by now. But it lives on, as tenacious as a cockroach or a Lib Dem “Winning Here!” sign after the nuclear apocalypse;
  7. Astrology and astronomy were at one time, one and the same thing, but diverged during the 17th and 18th centuries (the Age of the Endarkenment, as some astrologers harshly refer to those times) and these days astronomers are some of astrology’s harshest critics. Justifiably so, in many respects. And in fairness, astronomy can get on with accurately describing the physical reality of the universe much more effectively without all the airy-fairy astrological baggage.
  8. Astrology is partly science (the bit which still studies the movements of the planets using the principles of astronomy) and partly art, or “pseudo-science”. Its vagueness and inexact language will infuriate the more scientific amongst you. There is a lot of new agey bollocks talked about it and a lot of charlatans practising it. It requires a certain elasticity of mind and openness to ambiguity which is not everyone’s forte or cup of tea.
  9. Astrology is all about symbolism and there is a lot of overlap with such things as mythology and psychology. If you are only comfortable with things which are tangible and can be explained via logic and reasoning or “proved” via mathematics or current science, then astrology probably isn’t for you, and I’m talking to YOU, Taurus. (Just my little astrology joke).
  10. You may laugh at astrology, but it is used in the background by politicians (e.g. the Reagans), investment managers (e.g. JP Morgan himself) and all sorts of other successful and influential people. And plenty of prominent philosophers, psychologists and scientists have found value or interest in it (e.g. Einstein, Jung). Few are prepared to admit it, of course. It’s a bit like being a Brexiteer or Deplorable, only even more unacceptable in polite society.
  11. Star sign columns in newspapers are written by either charlatans who have little understanding of the full depth and breadth of the field of astrology, or by expert astrologers who know it’s a very shallow treatment of the topic but are a bit short of a) cash (astrology isn’t exactly a particularly profitable career) and b) principles. I have met at least one in the second category.
  12. Organised religions aren’t very keen on astrology, to put it mildly. I suppose some people come to treat it as a belief system in its own right and that could be seen as being in competition with the Church. Since Enlightenment days it has also been associated with the occult and even such things as witchcraft. All of this is rather unfair in my view and I don’t see it as being incompatible with organised religion at all – but that is a matter for every individual to decide.

As someone with degrees in science and engineering, I started out in adult life as an extreme sceptic about astrology. But before dismissing it out of hand I thought I ought to at least study it first and be able to dismiss it from a position of knowledge. After all, we don’t like people describing something as “baseless” without considering the evidence, do we?

And over time, as I have studied it more, I have come to the realisation that a) it does have some value, as long as you don’t take it too seriously and b) it is worthy of study as a subject in its own right, especially given its longevity and complexity, even if you disagree with its practice and are sceptical of its results. People get degrees in media and gender studies after all, so why not a millenia-old study of our relationship with the cycles of the planets?

One very good example of something which to me demonstrated the power of astrology was provided by the events of 11th September 2001.

Saturn and Pluto’s orbits around the Sun take 29 and 248 years respectively. From our perspective down on Earth, they appear to be in the same part of the sky every approximately 35 years (the exact length of the cycle varies depending on Pluto’s current position in its rather eccentric oval orbit).

The Pluto / Saturn cycle is associated with major shifts in global affairs. In astrological symbolism, Pluto represents powerful, unseen forces in society which bring life-changing but unavoidable transformation. Saturn represents the Establishment, the agreed “rules of the game”, the status quo, authority figures. Saturnine change brings about restriction, repression, reversion to traditional ways of doing things.

Pluto at the time of 9/11 was located in Sagittarius, the sign of the archer, while Saturn was located directly opposite Pluto, in the sign of Gemini, represented by the symbol of twins.

Astrologers had been anticipating this planetary combination for some time and were expecting it to be correlated with some form of major global confrontation and war (the opposition between two planets brings the principles of the planets into conflict). However as is often the case with astrologers, they were mostly quite short on specifics.

Albeit with the benefit of hindsight, the correlation between the events of 9/11 and the principles suggested by astrology were very striking. We had aeroplanes piloted by religious extremists (Sagittarius is associated with religion and “higher learning”) from overseas (Sagittarius is associated with foreign travel) who trained in secret (secrecy and the underworld is associated with Pluto) firing like arrows (Sagittarius is the sign of the archer) into the twin (the symbol of Gemini) towers, which were in real life a symbol of the global financial establishment (the status quo, associated with Saturn), resulting in huge loss of life (Pluto is associated with the sudden ending of things, both literally and metaphorically).

The events of 9/11, as we know, resulted in two wars and huge transformation and restrictions in both foreign travel and in individual freedoms, many of which remain to this day.

Interestingly, 19 years later we are now at the point in the Saturn / Pluto cycle in which the planets are now in another important relationship – they are conjunct, at the same point in the sky from our viewpoint. Not only that but Jupiter is involved in the configuration, which brings in an additional dynamic. Even the most ardent critic of astrology would admit that 2020 has been a year of radical global transformation whose effects will be felt for many years to come, just as those of 9/11 were.

Aside from global, mundane events, there have been remarkable correlations between planetary cycles and my own personal life which I won’t go into here but have made me sit up and take notice about astrology.

The basics

Before going on to talk about the Presidency and how I came to my conclusion, I do need to explain a bit about what an astrology chart looks like. Here is the one I created for the question which forms the title of this article:

Arthur Dent, Going Postal
Date of chart: Friday 27th November 11:51pm. Chart courtesy of www.astro.com (free resource)
“Unmodified publication of chart drawings which are created from the user’s own data does not require permission by Astrodienst.”

An astrological chart is basically a two dimensional representation of where all the planets are in relation to the backdrop of the constellations at a particular date and time at a particular place on the Earth. In this case late evening at Dent Towers on Friday 27th November 2020.

If you imagine that Dent Towers is in the middle of the chart, the circumference of the outside circle on the chart represents the ecliptic – the apparent path the Sun takes daily across the sky.  The ecliptic is divided into twelve sections – the twelve signs of the zodiac you are probably familiar with, marked with their symbols or glyphs(Ed. Untranslatable character) for Taurus, a (Ed. Untranslatable character) for Cancer etc.

The point on the left marked “AC” or Ascendant represents the Eastern horizon, the point on the right marked “DC” or Descendant represents the Western horizon, and the point at the top marked “MC” represents the “Midheaven” or the highest point the Sun reaches in the sky. Everything above the AC – DC line is currently above the horizon, everything below the line is below the horizon.

Each of the planets’ (plus Sun and Moon’s) locations are marked with their particular glyph, or symbol. So you can see the Moon located in Taurus at the top right of the chart – if I had gone outside at this time and the sky had been clear I would have seen the Moon in the South-Western sky. Similarly I wouldn’t have seen the Sun because it was night-time and as you can see from the chart the Sun is down below the horizon in the sign of Sagittarius.

As well as the 12 sections of the ecliptic – the zodiac – you will see the ecliptic also has 12 bicycle spokes leading out to it from the centre. These divide the ecliptic into 12 houses. Each of these 12 houses has, in astrological theory, a manifestation down here on Earth. So the first house represents birth and the physical body, the third house represents communications and short journeys; the ninth house represents higher learning and philosophy.

So each planet (or the Sun or Moon) at a particular time and place is located in both an astrological sign of the zodiac, and a house.  For example, at the time this chart was cast, the Moon was located in Taurus in the ninth house.

You will also see red and blue lines connecting the glyphs which represent each planet. These lines represent transits of one planet to another. As the planets wander across the sky, at times they will occupy the same point in space against the backdrop of the stars – this is known as a conjunction. The most visible type of conjunction is an eclipse of the Sun, when the Moon passes in front of the Sun when viewed from Earth. Not every Sun/Moon conjunction results in an astronomical eclipse due to the slight irregularities of the Earth and Moon’s orbits, but every conjunction counts in astrological terms.

Similarly in 2012 you may remember witnessing a conjunction of the Sun and Venus, when Venus passed in front of the solar disc when viewed from Earth.

Arthur Dent, Going Postal
Venus Transit, June 5th, 2012
“Venus Transit, June 5th, 2012” by Matt Hecht is marked with CC PDM 1.0

Similarly we can have “oppositions”, where the planets concerned are separated by 180 degrees or are opposite each other (the most obvious type of opposition being a Full Moon, some of which are also lunar eclipses, where the Earth lies exactly between the Moon and the Sun and the light from the Sun is blocked by the Earth, often causing the Moon to turn a coppery colour).

In addition to conjunctions and oppositions, the planets can form other relationships with each other – squares, where the planets are separated by 90 degrees; sextiles: 60 degrees; and trines: 120 degrees. Each of these relationships holds significance in astrology; for example during a conjunction the characteristics represented by each planet “join together” while during an opposition those characteristics come into conflict. You will no doubt be familiar with the idea that people go “a bit nuts” during full moons; astrology says this is the result of people’s solar nature (their rationality, conscious personality) coming into conflict with their emotions and unconscious personality.

The complicated tables at the bottom of the chart basically summarise the relationships between the planets at the time this chart was cast.

Astrologers have noted that when planets are “in” particular astrological signs, their influence seems particularly strong and/or benign, while in other signs it seems weak or malign. So for example the influence of the planet Saturn seems particularly strong when it is located in the region of the sky named Capricorn and Aquarius (as it is right now), and weak when it is located in Cancer and Leo. This strength or weakness is called the planet’s “dignity”.

I could go on but essentially studying an astrological chart involves looking at the locations of the planets and their relationships to each other and using knowledge about past correlations between those positions and relationships and events on Earth to make predictions.

Types of Astrology

Astrology takes many forms. For starters there are Western astrology, Indian astrology and Chinese astrology, with different symbols and methods.

There is natal astrology – where a chart is cast for the moment someone is born, and judgements are made about that person’s personality based on the locations of the planets in the astrological signs, houses and in relation to each other.

There is mundane astrology – the astrology of world events, where a chart is cast for a particular moment – the birth of a nation for example, or the opening of a Parliament, or the vote to leave a hated federal Superstate – and judgements are made about the future based on the locations of the planets at that time.

There is electional astrology – where for example someone wants to choose a particularly auspicious moment for an important event – a marriage, or a war, or the posting of a knitted penis image onto a rival internet site.

There is medical astrology, which dates from the days when people and diseases were categorised as being predominantly belonging to one of the “four humours” – choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic or sanguine and “appropriate” treatments were cooked up as appropriate (or not, more often).

And there are many other types of astrology, most of which I know very little about.

But the type of astrology I have used here to try to predict the President’s future is horary astrology.

Horary Charts

Horary means literally – of the hour. The idea of a horary chart is that if someone has a question at the forefront of their mind, the answer to the question can be found in a chart of the planets at the precise moment the question is asked. Each planet represents a character relevant to the question.

This is where even the most open-minded, curious people generally decide to hop off the astrology bus and I don’t blame you if you join them. This is a really hard idea to swallow. I know I struggled with it for a long time until I consulted a horary astrologer while I was studying astrology myself and she came back with an answer to my question which was startlingly correct not only in its ultimate conclusion but in the richness of its detail.

I have used horary myself on multiple occasions with similar success. I have also been spectacularly wrong too, and that could be either because horary astrology is actually complete bollocks, or I am occasionally really crap at it, or a combination of both. Although in horary theory there are a number of rather vague and sometimes contradictory rules on when a chart might not be reliable (which dates from the time when royal astrologers were reluctant to go out on a limb with a prediction for fear of actually losing that limb at the King’s hand).

But anyway, if you are still with me and want to know how I reached the conclusion that Donald Trump will remain President based on a chart showing where the planets are in the sky at a moment in time, I will walk you through the method.

In horary astrology, the person asking the question is called the querent. In the horary chart, the querent is represented by the zodiac sign on the Ascendant, in this case Virgo, and the planet ruling, or associated with, that sign, in this instance Mercury.

However in this instance, I am not asking whether I will win the Presidency; I’m asking whether Donald Trump, who is already the President of the United States, will win the Presidency. So in this instance we need to “turn the chart” and make the house relating to the President the new “first house”.

So I need to find what in the chart represents Donald Trump. Well, he is the President of a foreign (to me, the querent) country. In horary astrology, foreign countries are represented by the Ninth house – the one with the Moon in it in the chart above. And the leader of a country is represented by the tenth house. So from the perspective of the querent – i.e. me – the leader of the foreign country is the tenth house if I start counting from the ninth house, which if we count around anti clockwise, brings us to the house number 6 on the chart above.  This becomes Donald Trump’s first house in the newly turned chart.

The sign at the beginning of The President’s first house (the 6th as shown on the chart) is Aquarius. In horary astrology, the planet associated with Aquarius is Saturn. So this means that in this chart, Donald Trump is represented by the planet Saturn. If we look around the zodiac we can find Saturn currently in the 5th house on the diagram (United States 9th house), but quite close to the US 10th house (the President’s first house). The 10th house in a chart represents “the leader” and therefore symbolises the President and the Presidency.

But what of Joe Biden, Donald Trump’s opponent? Well, in horary, someone’s opponent is always represented by the planet ruling the sign which is on the cusp of the house opposite. In this instance that sign is Leo, and the Sun rules Leo, so the Sun represents Joe Biden in this chart. The Sun is currently located in Sagittarius, on the cusp of the US 8th house.

The judgement

In horary astrology, we make a judgement about what is likely to happen next based on three things:

  • How strong the characters involved in the question are inherently (their essential dignity)
  • How strong the characters involved in the question are at this precise moment (their accidental dignity)
  • What contacts will the characters involved make between each other and other characters in coming days, weeks, months (shown by upcoming transits between the planets representing those characters. Remember the conjunctions, oppositions etc. from earlier?)

Essential dignity

In this instance, President Trump is represented by the sign Saturn. Saturn is in its own, ruling sign, Capricorn, a placement demonstrating inherent strength. While Saturn is coming close to the end of the sign of Capricorn, it will soon enter another sign which it rules and is therefore also strong in, Aquarius. So Donald Trump has inherent strength, which looks set to continue.

Accidental dignity

In terms of accidental dignity, Donald Trump’s planet is currently in his 12th house. This is not a strong position in terms of accidental dignity. This appears to be a strong person in a (currently) weak position.

Forthcoming contacts

So what about what happens next in terms of the movements of the planets?

We see that in 22 degrees Saturn will enter Donald Trump’s own first house (and the tenth house, or leadership, of the US). This seems to me indicative of him metaphorically re-entering the White House shortly (perhaps around 3 weeks from the time the question was asked, which would be around December 19th).

In entering Aquarius, Donald Trump’s planet will also be entering the sign of the Sun’s detriment. The Sun represents his opponent Joe Biden, and I take this to indicate that DJT  will soon be in a new situation which is detrimental to Joe Biden’s prospects.

The other consideration I would make is that shortly after entering Aquarius, Saturn is conjoined by Jupiter. Jupiter in this chart represents the 9th house of the US. The ninth house in a chart relates to judges and the legal system. Jupiter currently is located in Capricorn, the sign of its fall – a position of extreme weakness. It suggests that at the moment the legal system is quite literally falling down. However when Jupiter leaves Capricorn and enters Aquarius, it will a) no longer be in its fall b) will come together with Donald Trump and c) will be in the sign of Joe Biden’s detriment. Joe Biden’s significator in the chart (the Sun) will also have moved into the 9th house of the US chart, representing the legal system.

Finally, looking at the movements of the Moon and Mercury, we can see that they both make contact with Jupiter (representing the US legal system) and then very soon afterwards Saturn (representing the President). Often when we see this type of double contact it involves information being transmitted between the two parties involved (in this instance the legal system and the President) by third parties.

It’s not immediately obvious who the third parties represented by the Moon and Mercury might be, although in mundane charts the Moon often represents the general public, and the general public are certainly heavily involved with both the legal system (all those affadavits and public hearings) and the Trump campaign.

Mercury in this chart is very close to the Sun, which represents Biden, is getting closer to the Sun and is, in astrology terms, combust, which means in real-world terms that they are under the influence of the character represented by the Sun (Biden). I would speculate that Mercury represents some associate of Biden. Interestingly, whoever this is, after contact with Jupiter (the US legal system) moves into Sagittarius, a sign in which it is in its detriment. Perhaps whoever Mercury represents is off for trial?

Anyway, putting all of this together, I take all of this to indicate that the US justice system will, together with Donald Trump, soon act in a way detrimental to Joe Biden’s chances and a short period afterwards, Donald Trump will return to the White House.

Interestingly, while Donald Trump and the legal system appear to be detrimental to Joe Biden, he is in a sign in which he has good essential dignity. He is also not really involved in much of the activity which is going on around him – the Sun which represents him has few immediate contacts with other planets.

I see this as meaning that while he will not become President, he will not suffer too much materially and will not necessarily be punished by the legal system. Perhaps others (whoever is represented in this chart by Mercury) will shoulder the blame for Biden’s defeat (and wrongdoings, if they are proved in court) and he will be left to hobble around car dealerships in Delaware all on his own for the rest of his life.

In summary

Pre-November 3rd, the astrology sites on which I have read the comments no-one reads were fairly evenly split on whether the astrology pointed to a Biden win or a Trump win, although they were all fairly unanimous that the result would not be finalised on election night. If astrology really did work, you might assume that there would be a consensus one way or another. But astrologers are subject to their own biases just like anyone else, and astrologers are as prone to TDS as the media.  And of course, it could be that astrology is complete bunkum – I remain open to that possibility.

As those of you who don’t read the comments will know, I have bet quite a lot (by my standards) of money on Biden not becoming President. This was based entirely on my observations about US politics over many months. I started betting on (not Biden) back in June. I’m neither sufficiently confident in my skills as an astrologer, nor confident enough in astrology itself, to have spent actual money on the basis of it. And making judgements on charts in which you have a personal stake always runs the risk of bias. I really want Trump to win for all sorts of reasons!

So I drew up this chart mainly out of interest, and it will be interesting to see whether my instincts about US politics and my astrological efforts align with what actually happens.

If you made it this far in the article – well done for your open-mindedness and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed an insight into the crazy world of astrology!
 

© Arthur Dent 2020
 

The Goodnight Vienna Audio file