Secrets of Predictive Astrology: Improve the Scope of Your Forecasts Using William Frankland's Techniques

By Anthony Louis

Improve Your Forecasts with William Frankland's Simple, Dependable Techniques

In the 1920s, London astrologer William Frankland revolutionized predictive astrology. His logical and orderly methods were revered for their direct reliance on the birth chart instead of complex and time-consuming mathematics. Though Frankland's name is not well-known today, his rapid and reliable techniques are still relevant. Now you can learn them for yourself.

Unsatisfied with the traditional techniques of his time, Frankland turned to texts by Claudius Ptolemy and Alan Leo to develop more nuanced accuracy in forecasting. Drawing from Frankland's two books, author Anthony Louis analyzes more than sixty example charts, showing how inclusive and uncomplicated these game-changing techniques can be, even with charts where the exact birth time is not known.

Louis delves into the relationship between one's age and zodiac signs, using Ptolemy's seven ages of man and Alan Leo's twelve stages of life, and how birth numbers can identify potentially significant years. He also explores how Frankland utilized midpoints, symbolic directions, planetary periods, operative influences, the twelve houses, and more. With Louis’s valuable insight on Frankland's predictive system, you can make the most of opportunities to come.

 

Includes a foreword by Maria Blaquier, director of Academia de Astrología Avanzada MB in Argentina

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9780738774749

Anthony Louis

Anthony Louis is a psychiatrist who has studied astrology as a serious avocation since his early teens. His longstanding interest in the history and symbolism of the divinatory arts has led to his lecturing internationally and publishing numerous articles and books on astrology, tarot, and other forms of divination. His highly acclaimed text, Tarot Plain and Simple, first appeared in 1997 and has become a perennial favorite for students of tarot. His most recent book, Secrets of Predictive Astrology, discusses the work of the relatively unknown but brilliant early 20th century British astrologer William Frankland. Anthony is a member of the Astrological Society of Connecticut. His blog is at TonyLouis.wordpress.com.

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Secrets of Predictive Astrology: Improve the Scope of Your Forecasts Using William Frankland’s Techniques Copyright © 2023 by Anthony Louis.

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First e-book edition © 2023

E-book ISBN: 9780738774749

Cover design by Shannon McKuhen

Charts created using Solar Fire software, published by Astrolabe, Inc., www.alabe.com

Interior art by the Llewellyn Art Department

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Louis, Anthony, author.

Title: Secrets of predictive astrology : improve the scope of your

forecasts using William Frankland’s techniques / by Anthony Louis.

Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn Worldwide,

2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This

book is an overview of the predictive techniques of William Frankland, a

well-known London astrologer who published two books in the late 1920s

about symbolic directions. The book is focused on how to use Frankland’s

techniques in order to create a chart that will show what years/times of

someone’s life will be favorable or not favorable. It allows the reader

to prepare for good and not-so-good times in their life"— Provided by

publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023030446 (print) | LCCN 2023030447 (ebook) | ISBN

9780738774640 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738774749 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Predictive astrology. | Zodiac. | Astrology.

Classification: LCC BF1720.5 .M68 2023 (print) | LCC BF1720.5 (ebook) |

DDC 133.5—dc23/eng/20231002

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023030446

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023030447

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Other Books by Anthony Louis

Horary Astrology:

The Theory and Practice of Finding Lost Objects

(Llewellyn, 2021)

Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Tarot

(Llewellyn, 2016)

Tarot Beyond the Basics

(Llewellyn, 2014)

The Art of Forecasting Using Solar Returns

(The Wessex Astrologer, 2008)

Horary Astrology Plain & Simple

(Llewellyn, 2002)

Tarot Plain & Simple

(Llewellyn, 1996)

"There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures."

—Brutus speaking to Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, act 4, scene 3

"I had made my way to Mr. Frankland’s office intent on complaining bitterly to him of the inadequacy of our science, when a crisis of outstanding consequence could strike one unawares.

"But I had neither time nor opportunity to state my grievance and the nature of my mission. Mr. Frankland took the offending chart in his hand, looked at it for a few moments, and proceeded to describe the very events in question, their nature, and the time of their occurrence.

In view of the hours I had spent vainly trying to account for them myself, my feelings of astonishment can be imagined.

—L. Protheroe Smith, client and student of William Frankland, in his

foreword to Frankland’s New Measures in Astrology, 1928

Contents

List of Charts

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter I: An Overview of Frankland’s Astrological Investigations

Chapter 2: The Vocabulary of Directions and Progressions

Chapter 3: Alan Leo’s Zodiac Signs as Periods of Life

Chapter 4: Planetary Periods and Ptolemy’s Seven Ages of Man

Chapter 5: Frankland’s Point of Life Measure

Chapter 6: Birth Numbers Identify Potentially Significant Years

Chapter 7: Frankland on Methods of Prediction and Their Scope

Chapter 8: Judging the Overall Tenor of the Chart

Chapter 9: Age Along the Zodiac (Age Point)

Chapter 10: Midpoints and Areas of Life

Chapter 11: The 12 Houses

Chapter 12: Combining Cusps of Houses to Produce Sensitive Points

Chapter 13: Average Positions and Midpoints

Chapter 14: Aspects and Orbs: The Knatchbull Twins

Chapter 15: The 4/7° Age Point

Chapter 16: Frankland’s Measures with Unknown Birth Times

Chapter 17: Frankland’s Student L. Protheroe Smith

Chapter 18: Forecasting Methods of Wynn and Adams

Chapter 19: Atacirs (Symbolic Directions)

Chapter 20: Found by the Aid of the Stars

Epilogue

Appendix A: The Point of Life

Appendix B: The 4/7° Per Year Measure (4/7° Age Point)

Appendix C: Ptolemy’s Seven Ages of Man

Appendix D: Alan Leo’s Zodiac Signs Combined with Ptolemy’s Seven Ages of Man

Appendix E: Keywords for the Planets, Ascendant, and Midheaven

Bibliography

Charts

Introduction

Chart 1: Jennifer Aniston

Chapter 2

Chart 2: Miguel de Unamuno

Chart 3: Woman Who Divorced

Chart 4: Evangeline Adams

Chapter 3

Chart 5: Shinzo Abe

Chapter 4

Chart 6: Alan Leo

Chart 7: Male Chart with Uranus Square Saturn

Chart 8: King George V

Chapter 5

Chart 9: Charles Carter

Chapter 6

Chart 10: Alan Leo, Birth Chart, with Secondary Progressions for 7 August 1890 in Outer Wheel

Chart 11: Charles Lindbergh

Chart 12: Sophia Frances Hickman

Chart 13: Ruth Ellis

Chart 14: Lad Who Died in a Windstorm

Chart 15: Martha Stewart

Chart 16: Man Whose Arm Was Torn Off

Chapter 7

Chart 17: Robert Louis Stevenson

Chart 18: Wilson Barrett

Chart 19: Jim Henson

Chapter 8

Chart 20: Fateful Chart

Chart 21: Dorit Schmiel

Chapter 9

Chart 22: Death by Hanging

Chart 23: Pope Francis

Chart 24: Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales

Chart 25: Elizabeth II, Queen of England

Chart 26: Elizabeth II, Queen of England, Solar Return 2022

Chart 27: George Eliot

Chapter 10

Chart 28: George Bernard Shaw

Chart 29: A Modern Example (Anonymous)

Chart 30: Rudolph Valentino

Chart 31: Christa McAuliffe

Chart 32: Christopher Reeve

Chapter 11

Chart 33: $35 Million Lottery Winner

Chapter 12

Chart 34: Ramsay MacDonald

Chart 35: Benito Mussolini

Chart 36: Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

Chart 37: William Ewart Gladstone

Chart 38: Justin Bieber

Chart 39: Stanley Conder

Chart 40: Valerie Percy

Chapter 13

Chart 41: William Frankland

Chart 42: Astrologer Who Died at Age 46

Chart 43: Deborah Houlding

Chart 44: Woman from Madrid

Chart 45: Garry Hoy

Chapter 14

Chart 46: Nicholas Knatchbull

Chapter 15

Chart 47: Private Client of Frankland

Chart 48: Frida Kahlo

Chart 49: Pat Harris

Chart 50: George Michael

Chart 51: Man Whose Mother Died

Chart 52: Man Whose Mother Died, Solar Return 1936

Chart 53: Boy Whose Father Died by Suicide

Chapter 16

Chart 54: Emperor Hadrian

Chart 55: Emmett Till

Chapter 17

Chart 56: L. Protheroe Smith

Chart 57: Boris Cristoff

Chapter 18

Chart 58: Sidney K. Bennett (Wynn), Birth Chart, with Secondary Progressions

for 18 May 1926 in Outer Wheel

Chart 59: Sidney K. Bennett (Wynn), Wynn Key Cycle Return for 18 May 1926,

with Birth Chart in Outer Wheel

Chart 60: Man Who Drowned on Vacation, Wynn Key Cycle Return

for 31 October 1908

Chart 61: Woman with Liver Function Tests, Wynn Key Cycle Return

for 18 August 2022

Chapter 20

Chart 62: Edward Whitehead Vanishes, Horary Chart

Epilogue

Chart 63: Anthony Louis

Appendix A

Chart 64: Yevgeny Prigozhin

FOREWORD

I first met Anthony Louis in 2018 while attending a course on horary astrology at the School of Traditional Astrology (STA). Although he was already quite knowledgeable about horary—he had even written a book on the subject—he was taking part in the fundamentals of horary course, and I was lucky to have him in my study group. To me, his enrolling in this course was evidence of a man with an immense openness to knowledge and a deep love of learning. I saw in Anthony someone with a true passion for studies, willing to revisit and review topics about which he already had expertise in order to learn new things and continue to grow. At the time, he was one of my favorite authors, and having him in my study group was more than I could ever wish for. I felt that life was giving me a gift that I should cherish.

I admired his open attitude towards learning, his capacity for analysis and the investigative spirit that led him to test every technique before accepting it as useful and reliable. In addition, his love for transmitting knowledge stood out; Anthony is curious, detail-oriented, and rigorous. In no time he became my tutor and a great ally on my path as an astrologer. With him by my side, I started to improve my techniques and grow professionally.

In this text, Anthony revisits the work of William Frankland, a prestigious English astrologer who was active during the inter-war period of the 1920s and 1930s and who developed his own predictive techniques. Unfortunately, Frankland’s work has fallen into oblivion, and his techniques are not widely known among contemporary astrologers. Anthony thus seeks to bring his methods back into the spotlight and give Frankland the recognition he deserves. In this book, Anthony explains the predictive techniques that Frankland developed and that are still quite useful for their accuracy and simplicity. To do so, he has carried out exhaustive research in which he himself acted as a guide to Frankland’s symbolic predictive measures.

Frankland’s techniques are simple but also surprisingly original and effective. He used symbolic language in a creative way and thus opened new possibilities for interpretation. As Anthony explains, Frankland believed that every major event in a person’s life is accompanied by a symbolic aspect that highlights a sector of the individual’s life and that may be activated by operative astrological influences during a particular period. Frankland proposed symbolic measures that can be easily calculated in a few minutes without using any software and that help the astrologer to decide where to put the focus when analyzing a natal chart.

As an astrologer, I know firsthand that we often feel discouraged by complicated calculations, and I believe that Frankland’s measures are excellent additions to the astrologer’s toolbox. I truly hope that the reader of this volume finds these techniques and measurements as useful as I do.

Maria Blaquier

Director, Academia de Astrología Avanzada MB

Buenos Aires, Argentina

May 15, 2022

[contents]

INTRODUCTION

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2021, I began reviewing the works of William Frankland, a London-based astrologer who published two volumes in the late 1920s. He developed a remarkable approach to astrological forecasting that has been lost to many modern astrologers. Carefully testing his system on a large number of charts, I found Frankland’s techniques to be both simple and impressive in their results. Quite frankly, I was rather astounded.

My first acquaintance with Frankland’s work came in the 1980s, when I read Charles E. O. Carter’s 1929 book Symbolic Directions in Modern Astrology. Carter makes several references to Frankland’s new measures and mentions other symbolic directions that British astrologers were testing at the time. Unfortunately, Carter only focused on some key details of Frankland’s texts and did not explain that he had developed a well-integrated system of natal chart interpretation, grounded in years of astrological practice, that could quickly and reliably generate an outline of the major periods and events of the native’s life.

I didn’t pay much attention to these experiments with new ways of astrological forecasting because my focus was more on learning traditional techniques. I was heavily into William Lilly at the time. The Regulus edition of Christian Astrology (1647) had recently become available, and I was determined to read it cover to cover.

The final section of Lilly’s Christian Astrology has to do with the unfolding of the birth chart as revealed by primary directions, annual profections, solar returns, and transits. I was already familiar with transits, which were the backbone of prediction in the work of Evangeline Adams, whose books had initially introduced me to astrology during my teenage years. I was also somewhat familiar with primary directions, having used Llewellyn George’s primary direction method in his A to Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator (first published in 1910) to rectify my own chart.

Lilly’s use of continuous annual profections was new to me, and I found it hard to believe that such a simple technique could be reliable. Although Lilly did not mention secondary progressions in his seventeenth-century text, I had been using them routinely and effectively in predictive work. With so many traditional tools at my disposal, I looked askance at the modern experiments of the British school being described by Charles Carter.

William Frankland again caught my attention in the 1990s in Geoffrey Cornelius’s The Moment of Astrology (1994), which focuses mainly on horary, a great interest of mine at the time. Cornelius describes a case from Lancashire, UK, in which astrologer William Frankland cast a horary chart to locate the body of a 63-year-old depressed man who had gone missing and likely died by suicide. The son-in-law of the missing man used Frankland’s delineation to trace a route that led directly to the body. The story made headlines in England in 1926.

Cornelius remarked that Frankland’s methods deserved to be better known, stating in The Moment of Astrology that Frankland was known to an earlier generation of English astrologers for his pioneering development of ‘symbolic directions’ which much influenced Carter in the late 1920s. He was a full-time consultant astrologer with an office in the West-End of London and a thriving practice in the period between the wars. He was also one of the very few gifted horary astrologers of his period (Cornelius 1994, 132).

Frankland’s skill as a horary astrologer made me wonder whether his experiments with new symbolic techniques was worthy of reconsideration. I resolved to investigate Frankland’s methods as time permitted, but never quite got around to it. Finally, after a long hiatus, during the pandemic in the year 2021 I returned to Frankland’s writings. The result is this book that you have before you. My hope is that, as a reader of this text, you will be as impressed by Frankland’s astrological skill and creative genius as I have been in researching his approach to forecasting.

In many ways, Frankland’s discontent with traditional predictive techniques resembles the dissatisfaction mentioned by Michael Harding and Charles Harvey in their 1990 text on midpoints and harmonics, Working with Astrology, in which they address the problem of charts that do not reveal the known qualities of the moment in an obvious or well-established manner. Harding and Harvey begin their book by noting that the commonly used zodiacal birth chart is a distorted attempt to fit a highly-complex set of geometric relationships into a single diagram … which omits the majority of planetary relationships in favour of simplifying a few of them (Harding and Harvey 1990, 3).

Frankland gives an overview of his system for forecasting in New Measures in Astrology (1928):

The various methods are simple of calculation—just an addition of the cusps of houses (if known) and the age [of the native] in degrees, the measure round the signs at seven years per sign for areas [of life], and the moving of the planets along at four-sevenths of a degree per year of life. Yet these simple calculations will give us the power to estimate the important periods and years of life, without confusing the mind by a multitude of systems. (Frankland 1928, 90; italics mine)

Frankland’s research led to the development of a handful of symbolic measures, which he found to be reasonably reliable. Let me list them here as bullet points:

Adding together the zodiacal positions of the cusps of two houses to create a sensitive point, similar to a lot or Arabic part, which is symbolically related to the combined significations of the two houses.

Converting the current age of the native to an equivalent number of degrees of arc along the ecliptic, and then directing that arc, commencing at 0° Aries. This measure is similar to a solar arc direction but is symbolic rather than based on the real-time movement of the Sun.

Converting the current age to an arc of ecliptic degrees at the rate of one zodiac sign (30° degrees) per 7 years of life, which is 4.286° per year (the orbital speed of Uranus around the zodiac, an idea expounded by Alan Leo in the late 1800s), and directing that ecliptic arc from 0° Aries.

Advancing the planets through the zodiac at a rate of 4/7 of a degree per year of life, an idea of Frankland’s based on the long-standing occult significance of the numbers 4 and 7.

In the remainder of this book, I will explain these symbolic measures in detail with case examples. At this point, it is important to point out that Frankland viewed the function of his new symbolic measures as intensifiers of certain regions and configurations of the birth chart, which represent particular areas of life and natal promises, but he did not view these symbolic measures as operative astrological influences, such as progressions, which functioned to precipitate the natal promise into manifestation.

In his second book, however, Frankland appeared to treat his new 4/7 of a degree per year of life symbolic measure in two ways: both as an intensifier of configurations in the natal chart and as a method to symbolically direct points in the chart that serves as an operative influence, resulting in the manifestation of the natal promise. In Frankland’s system, the 4/7 ° per year measure is a symbolic direction that advances at the slowest rate in his system of forecasting, and, as we shall see, its contact with midpoints in the midpoint modal sort (90° midpoint sort) is quite useful in prediction.

Although Frankland routinely utilized midpoints in his work, he did not have available the type of midpoint modal sort that astrologers use today. The advantage of the modern 90° midpoint sort is that it compresses the 360° horoscope into the space of 90°, thereby grouping together zodiac signs according to mode (cardinal, fixed, mutable), as if layering all the signs of a single mode on top of one another. Such a layering of all four signs of a single modality into one-third of the 90° dial allows the astrologer to see at a glance which planets will be affected by the transits (or progressions or directions) of a planet through the sign of a particular modality. For example, if Saturn were to enter a cardinal sign, where it will spend the next 2 ½ years, the astrologer can easily see which natal planets in the Grand Cross of cardinal signs Saturn will aspect during those 2 ½ years, and in what order those aspects will perfect.

Frankland often uses metaphors to explain his new measures. For example, he compares the native’s natal promise to fruit growing in an orchard. At certain times of life, various fruits will ripen and become ready for picking. His new symbolic measures indicate when the fruit will be ripe, but the actual harvesting will be done by operative astrological influences, such as directions or progressions, that are in effect around the same time. From this perspective, Frankland’s methods resemble the timelord systems of Hellenistic astrology and the dasha systems of Indian astrology.

Alternatively, one might compare Frankland’s symbolic measures to the act of priming a pump. The symbolic directions do not cause the water to flow; rather, they indicate when the pump will be ready to produce water. Then, if an appropriate astrological operative influence activates the pump’s lever, water will issue forth.

Frankland explains why he developed these new measures, highlighting the fact that when he was forecasting with traditional methods, such as secondary progressions, it sometimes happened that strong progressed-to-natal aspects formed without an appropriate corresponding event, and, conversely, significant events sometimes occurred for which there was no corresponding secondary progression. As a result, he spent years searching for a simpler and more reliable way to assess a chart as quickly and accurately as possible.

Using his new measures, Frankland maintains that aspects may still form without corresponding events of importance, but no significant event will occur without aspects of an appropriate nature. In other words, he claims that every major life event will be accompanied by a meaningfully related aspect in his system of symbolic directing. He argues that when traditional methods of directing (primary directions, secondary progressions, major transits) coincide with his new measures, a significant event always occurs.

In judging the influence of his new measures, Frankland studied hits to natal planets and sensitive points in the chart as well as hits to significant midpoints. Although he does not mention Alfred Witte by name, Frankland frequently uses midpoints in a manner reminiscent of Witte, which leaves the impression that he was familiar with the work of the Hamburg School of Astrology during the period between World War I and the late 1920s.

The material in this text draws primarily upon Frankland’s first two books, published almost a hundred years ago: Astrological Investigations (1926) and Key Measures in Astrology (1928). Oddly, my copy of the first edition of Astrological Investigations does not indicate its date of publication. However, in that book, Frankland discusses the death of actor Rudolph Valentino; hence, the book must have been published after August of 1926, when the actor died. In addition, his first volume discusses George Bernard Shaw but does not mention his Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded in November of 1926. These facts suggest that Astrological Investigations went to press between late August and early November of 1926.

Frankland’s books inspired Charles E. O. Carter to publish his own text about symbolic directions, Symbolic Directions in Modern Astrology (1929). In it, Carter describes the methods of Frankland, stating:

The Age along the Zodiac is a method by which an imaginary point may be assumed to pass along the ecliptic from 0° Aries, at a rate of 1° to the year, forming aspects. (Carter 1929, 25–26)

Strictly speaking, this is not a new measure in astrology. In his book on annual revolutions from the ninth century, On the Revolutions of the Years of Nativities, Abu Ma’shar recommended directing the birth chart at a rate of 1° per year. Haly Abenragel in his eleventh-century Complete Book on the Judgment of the Stars devoted an entire chapter to various symbolic directions, including the 1° per year measure. The source of Ma’shar’s and Abenragel’s 1° per year measure appears to have been Claudius Ptolemy in the second century, who maintained that one equatorial degree could be equated to one year of life.

Unlike Ptolemy, Frankland’s method of symbolic directing involves one ecliptic degree per year, which is similar to, but not the same as, the real-time-based solar arc method of directing, which takes into consideration the difference in arc between the position of the secondary progressed Sun and natal Sun at a particular moment in time. Carter further states in Symbolic Directions in Modern Astrology (1929):

The Point of Life is an imaginary point which, starting from 0° Aries in every case, passes through the Zodiac at the rate of one sign for every seven years, or 4 2⁄7° per annum, forming aspects with radical positions.

My experience of this method is that it is of some value and merits the attention of all students, although its influence may be of a diffused character indicating the general diathesis of a period rather than special events.

In his second book, New Measures in Astrology, Mr. Frankland sets forth, among other things, a uniform measure of 4⁄7° to the year.

[…]

I can only give it as my opinion that this ratio is of value and a brilliant contribution to astrological science. (Carter 1929, 25)

Carter also cites an article in the April 1929 British Journal of Astrology in which Sepharial (aka Walter Gorn Old) compares Frankland’s 4/7 ratio to the mystical 600-year Naronic cycle (a true secret of god according to Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky), because the 360° of a circle divided by the 600 years of Naros equals 3/5, or 21/35, which is quite close to Frankland’s ratio of 4/7, equivalent to 20/35. This type of woo-woo thinking, based on the tenets of Theosophy, apparently pervaded British astrology in the early decades of the 1900s.

Frankland explains in New Measures in Astrology that the aim of his research into symbolic measurements was to establish a system whereby estimation of all important years and affairs of life can be calculated from the birth map alone (Frankland 1928, 51). One of his clients, L. Protheroe Smith, who first consulted Frankland at the end of 1926, writes in the foreword to New Measures in Astrology that his consultation with the astrologer was startling: "It was evident that Mr. Frankland had something at his disposal that was not only ‘simple, logical and orderly,’ but also uncommonly effective" (Frankland 1928, 8; bold highlighting mine).

Example Chart: Jennifer Aniston

Let’s take a quick look at a chart to see how simple, logical and orderly Frankland’s method can be. As I was writing this introduction, I happened to hear an astrologer discussing the chart of actress Jennifer Aniston and the life-altering experience of her father abandoning the family when she was only 9 years old. As an adult, Aniston recalled in an interview that when she returned home from a birthday party at age 9, her mother told her that her father was not going to be around for a little while, but a little while turned out to be a year before she again saw him. How would Frankland have interpreted Aniston’s natal chart?

After eyeballing her chart to get the big picture and assess its overall pattern, Frankland might have begun by stating that what immediately caught the eye is the cluster of planets and points in Aries in the 6th house opposing the planets and points in Libra in the 12th house (Chart 1). The 6th and 12th houses can indicate difficult periods of life, which is especially the case here because the contrary-to-sect malefic Saturn occupies the Aries group, with disruptive Uranus across the wheel in Libra, the sign of intimate relationships. Frankland consistently found that hard aspects involving Saturn and Uranus, even by whole sign, mark stressful times in clients’ lives.

Chart 1: Jennifer Aniston

11 February 1969, 10:22 p.m. PST, Los Angeles, California, 34N03 118W15

For timing, Frankland considered his symbolic measures, which he’d been testing for a number of years. For example, starting with 0° Aries as a universal symbol of the birth moment and measuring from there at a rate of 1° for every year of life, this so-called Age along the Zodiac Point crosses over Chiron and the North Lunar Node during Aniston’s first year of life. The Age Point’s next encounter is with Venus in 9° of Aries when she is 9 years old. The planetary goddess of love symbolizes ties of affection, but Venus is not comfortable in Aries, which is ruled by Mars, whose motto is make war, not love.

In addition, Venus at Aniston’s birth is opposed by Uranus, as well as by the South Lunar Node and Jupiter. Jennifer needs to be aware that Uranus, the planet of sudden and disruptive change, when paired with Venus can signify breakups, separations, or divorce. Around age 9, her Age along the Zodiac conjoins natal Venus, and she may experience events related to the disruptive nature of Uranus opposing Venus at that time. Conjunctions of symbolic measures to natal planets often indicate significant events related to the nature of the planet, its house position, and its rulerships and aspects.

Glancing at a list of eclipses around the time Jennifer was 9 years old, we find that a Total Lunar Eclipse at 3° 40' Libra hit her natal Uranus in March of 1978, and a Partial Solar Eclipse at 8° 43' Libra almost exactly opposed her natal Venus in October of that same year. Eclipses are powerful transits, which Frankland called excitants, and as such they can trigger the natal potentials of the birth chart, in this case, the natal opposition of Uranus to Venus. Frankland regards this natal Saturn-Uranus square as the most challenging feature of the birth chart

What form might these Venus-Uranus events take? A possible manifestation is a separation from a parent or a dissolution of family happiness when Jennifer is about 9 years old. Frankland would make this statement on the basis of his new measure, which advances from 0° Aries by 4/7 ° for each year of life and arrives at 5° 09' Aries when Aniston turns 9 years old. This 4/7 ° measure triggers Jupiter at 5° 14' Libra Rx and intensifies Jupiter’s opposition to Venus from the 12th house. Jupiter rules the natal 6th house, a traditionally unfortunate house, and also rules the natal 3rd house, which is the derived 12th house of the natal 4th house of parents and early family life. The 12th house from any house represents the dissolution or negation of the matters signified by that house. Thus, for Aniston at age 9, by the 4/7 ° measure, the dissolution of early family happiness becomes a distinct possibility.

Frankland would caution Jennifer that she needs to deal with this early disruption in the family, which occurred around age 9, because it could have long-term consequences. For example, the slow-moving planet Saturn, by secondary progression (at a rate of one day after birth equals one year of life), will strongly affect the natal 7th house cusp of marriage during her adult life. In Jennifer’s chart, Saturn lies in the sign of its fall in Aries and is also linked to Pluto by a stressful quincunx, a configuration that will remain in the background by secondary progression during much of her life. She might wish to enter psychotherapy to deal with this early childhood disruption so that it will not affect her potential to become happily married.

Frankland, no doubt, would have continued with his other measures and assessment of the natal potentials of the chart, but let me stop here because my intent was merely to give a taste of how simple and powerful his methods can be.

In reality, Jennifer’s father unexpectedly abandoned her when she was 9 years old. She came home one day from a birthday party to discover that her dad had abruptly left without even saying goodbye, and she had no further contact with him for about a year. Not long after her father left, her mother moved with Jennifer and her half-brother from California to New York City. Her parents finalized their divorce on 20 August 1980, when Jennifer was 11 years old.

In the remainder of this book, we will flesh out Frankland’s system in detail and test how well it works in a variety of case examples. His writing style is somewhat terse, and he doesn’t always explain fully what he is thinking. As a result, I have had to piece together some of his methodology from his sample charts, and I hope I have done so accurately.

As you work through the examples in this book and apply his techniques to your own chart, I suspect that your ability to interpret a birth chart will grow in ways that surprise you, as they did for his client and future student Protheroe Smith, who first consulted William Frankland in 1926. Working though Frankland’s books, I too have been repeatedly impressed by the power, simplicity, and brilliance of the approach of this master astrologer.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson I have learned from Frankland is to start with the big picture and overall pattern or plan of the birth chart and avoid getting lost in the details. In some ways, Frankland’s approach is contrary to the teachings of other astrologers, who start with the details and work diligently to synthesize them into an overall and coherent scheme.

Let me conclude this introduction by expressing my gratitude to Maria Blaquier, an astrologer from Argentina, who read early drafts, made recommendations, and agreed to write a foreword. Her comments and suggestions have been invaluable. I am also grateful to a host of other astrologers whose names are too numerous to mention. Among them are Geoffrey Cornelius, who first drew my attention to William Frankland in his book The Moment of Astrology back in 1994, and to Deborah Houlding, whose research identified a possible birth date for Edward Whitehead, the elderly man who went missing in 1926 and whom Frankland helped to find with the aid of a horary chart. This case study is the subject of the final chapter of this book.

[contents]

Chapter I

AN OVERVIEW OF FRANKLAND’S

ASTROLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS

It has struck me that it is possible for the astrological student to sacrifice too much on the altar of exact science, and it may not be out of place if here we attempt to reclaim some of that ground which has been ceded by Cosmic Symbolism to exact methods.

—Sepharial (Walter Gorn Old), Transits and Planetary Periods, 1920, p. 43

William Frankland was born in or near Burnley, England, on 26 September 1878, with his 10th house ruler, Mercury, and 9th house ruler, Venus, conjoined to the Virgo Ascendant. Given that the 10th house signifies career and the 9th is closely allied to astrology and divination, it is not surprising that he became a professional astrologer.

Around 1916, Frankland moved from Burnley to London and set up a practice as a consulting astrologer. In 1915, Alan Leo (aka William Frederick Allen) established the Astrological Lodge of London, which may have been one of the reasons that Frankland decided to relocate there. Leo had previously been active in the Astrological Society (founded in 1895) and in the Society for Astrological Research (founded in 1903). After Leo’s death in 1917 at the age of 57, the Astrological Lodge languished until it was revived by Charles E. O. Carter, who served as its president from 1920 until 1952.

In the foreword to his Astrological Investigations (1926), Frankland states that he spent more than twelve years (beginning around 1913) studying natal charts, during which time his frustration with established predictive techniques motivated him to seek easier and more reliable methods of forecasting. He summed up his approach as follows:

Test all things. Hold fast to that which proves itself of value, irrespective of any bias or prejudice. (Frankland 1926, 30)

Frankland tested the standard methods of astrological prediction that were in vogue early in the twentieth century (primary directions, secondary progressions, transits). Such techniques were grounded in a view that astrology was a form of exact science whose methods could predict events precisely. Frankland found that such operative aspects were powerful and effective tools, but only some of the time. Major events sometimes occurred in the lives of his clients with no corresponding directions, progressions, or transits. Conversely, significant directions, progressions, or transits took place with no corresponding event in his clients’ lives. With a cluster of planets in Virgo in his own birth chart, Frankland sought a more thoroughgoing, logical, efficient, and orderly predictive technique.

From 1922 to 1925, Frankland researched other techniques, that is, symbolic measures that might identify when the standard predictive techniques (operative aspects) were likely to trigger the manifestation of the astrological symbolism in the chart. He realized that the majority of standard predictive measures were based on real-time or actual movement of the planets. Primary directions, for example, project the apparent rotation of the sky around the

Reviews for Secrets of Predictive Astrology

[Goku · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an extremely useful resource on predictive astrology, not only focusing on Frankland techniques but also covering descriptions from many other authors. It fills an important gap