WSJ

The fate of the 2008 presidential election might already be sealed—in the fine print on Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

Was he born at 1:06 p.m.? Or was it just after 12? According to America’s most popular political astrologers, what happened—or did not happen—during that crucial Honolulu hour on August 4, 1961 could determine the future of the free world.

Since Mr. Obama’s birth time is not yet publicly known, even to his own campaign, astrologers who make their living interpreting the impact of the heavens on the nation’s earthbound elected leaders can’t make up their mind as to whether he has one of the most ready-made “leadership charts” in recent presidential history—a strikingly similar one to Bill Clinton’s, save the seductive planets—or is cursed with the prospect of physical danger and a mentality too cerebral to run a country.

The only existing report of the time, which apparently originated from a shout-out from Mr. Obama over a noisy crowd to astrologer Frances McEvoy during a New Hampshire pass-through earlier this year, places him at 1:06 p.m., coincidently just 300 seconds after the moon transitioned from Taurus, a sign of resolution and leadership, to Gemini, a decidedly less confident constellation. And it’s only an hour before the ascending planet in the horizon, which determines first impressions, transitioned from a deeply powerful constellation to a more wavering and reckless one.

“If he were born an hour earlier, it would make a huge difference,” explained astrologer Michael “WolfStar” O’Reilly, who wrote about Mr. Obama’s alleged campaign-trail exchange with the astrologer on his Web site, NeptuneCafe.com. Mr. O’Reilly, who has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and is a weekly contributor to StarIQ.com, one of the Web’s most popular online sources of horoscope information, has his own theories on what all of this means for Mr. Obama.

“One of the problems with Obama is he has a progressed Mars in the 12th house—the house of secret enemies—and Mars is the warrior planet,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “And it’s forming some very hard aspects to Pluto, which is the warrior of his chart.” In other words, “he has some very powerful enemies.”

Although Mr. O’Reilly fears that one such enemy might be a gun-wielding lunatic (he thanks the Secret Service for “catching on”), the stars might simply be spelling out “Hillary Rodham Clinton,” who has a formidable chart and who many astrologers believe will win regardless of the moment Mr. Obama emerged from the womb. She enjoys a Scorpio sun—historically the most common sun sign for a president to have—and a Mars in Leo, which, to a statistically improbable degree, according to Mr. O’Reilly, is the most frequent Mars placement for a U.S. leader.

Jeff Jawer, the founder of StarIQ, who invented the first-ever hand-held astrological calculator and cowrites a best-selling annual astrology guide, described Mrs. Clinton as “seriously formidable.” He also said she is not quite who she appears.

“Now, I’m not a Hillary fan, even though I’m a Democrat, but Hillary may be nicer than we think,” he said. He noted her Pisces moon, an indication of innate compassion that no U.S. president before has ever shared. But then he warned of a potentially “Machiavellian” side to her, caused by a Scorpio sun and Scorpio ascendant: “Even people who like Hillary’s Scorpion way, we know there’s an enormous amount going on beneath the surface. Elements of the left don’t trust her. And that’s the thing about Hillary: We will probably never know her. And in the age of media saturation, we love the quality of accessibility in leaders.”

But in addition to Mrs. Clinton, astrologers say, Mr. Obama has yet another foe to potentially worry about: the sun itself.

He will be threatened for only a brief period, four days, in February, when a rare solar eclipse will be ascending in the heavens. The problem: that’s when Super Duper Tuesday—the mega-primary day in which as many as 20 states will be selecting their Democratic nominees—happens.

As cosmic forecaster Dulce Bell-Bulley put it during an interview with The Observer when she stumbled upon this fact, “Wait—no! Oh, my God!”

“That’s very significant,” explained the British-accented Ms. Bell-Bulley, who serves New York clients and has written in publications about topics such as the astrology of the first Iraq election. “It won’t just be which Democrat and which Republican is decided then. In the hearts of the people, it will be which president.”

Wilma Carroll, another well-known astrologer who studied under a Tibetan monk years ago and has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and FOX News—and who correctly predicted the 2000 election on Live with Regis—was comparing all the candidates to the eclipse and noting minor potential impacts when she turned to Mr. Obama.

“Hmm … 17 degrees right opposite everything in that mid-heaven,” Ms. Carroll mumbled. Then she gasped. “This hits him really hard!” she said. “It’s down at the bottom of his chart and opposes all of his planets in his 10th house of career. Opposes a lot of them—opposes his sun, Uranus, phew, it’s like knocking the wind out of someone. It can really be frightening to him.”

But if he plays it right, Mr. Obama could also benefit from the sudden influx of cosmic energy. Since the eclipse hits the U.S. chart, as well—derived from Mr. O’Reilly’s increasingly popular view that the United States was born at 2:21 p.m. on July 4, 1776, when John Hancock (might have) signed his name to the Declaration of Independence—perhaps the electorate might be ready to hit that reset button, too.

Either way, according to these readings, Mr. Obama had better brace himself. Or hire an astrologer to run his schedule, as it later emerged that former President Ronald Reagan did for at least six years following the attempt on his life. (Or, for that matter, hold seances with Abraham Lincoln, as Mrs. Clinton was reported by Bob Woodward to have done—a story that the Clintons vociferously denied—in the early, trying years of her husband’s presidency.)

Mr. Obama’s press office in Chicago said they did not know his time of birth, nor where the information might be obtained. And Hawaii, by law, keeps birth certificates sealed. Mrs. Carroll, for one, is simply so overwhelmed by the ambiguous writings in the sky that she is resorting to her usually clairvoyant “gut feeling” for the time being. “I just feel Giuliani so strongly,” she said. “You have no idea.”

by Andrew Mangino

Published: July 24, 2007

New York Observer

Pluto's Demotion Divides Astrologers

Friday, August 25, 2006

By Jane Spencer,

The Wall Street Journal

The ruling by the world's top astronomers to boot Pluto from the planet category is sending shock waves through another set of dedicated stargazers: the world of astrologers, who are already mulling how this turn of events will affect our moods, our lucky numbers and our chances of getting a date on Saturday night.

For weeks, astrologers have been buzzing about the proposal approved Thursday at the International Astronomical Union general assembly in Prague that will recast the map of the solar system for the first time since 1930. After days of impassioned debate, the astronomers voted to demote Pluto, the smallest of the nine planets, to a new class of solar-system bodies called dwarf planets.

Astrologers believe that the positions of the moon, sun and stars affect human affairs and that people born under the 12 signs of the Zodiac tend to pick up qualities of the planets associated with those signs. Some astrologers, including leaders of the American Federation of Astrologers and the Astrological Association of Great Britain, are standing firmly by Pluto. They say they will continue to regard the icy orb as a full-blown planet with a powerful pull on our psyche, despite the astronomers' decision.

"Whether he's a planet, an asteroid, or a radioactive matzo ball, Pluto has proven himself worthy of a permanent place in all horoscopes," says Shelley Ackerman, columnist for the spirituality Web site Beliefnet.com. Ms. Ackerman criticized the IAU for not including astrologers in its decision.

Others warned that Scorpios -- people born between Oct. 23 and Nov. 21 -- should be especially cautious in the coming days because the sign is closely associated with Pluto.

"Scorpios can be extremely explosive, and very direct, and this could be the trigger that makes them explode," says Milton Black, an Australian astrologer who claims to have more than 580,000 clients. Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, take note. All three are Scorpios.

Thursday's ruling in Prague brought good news to some. The astronomers indicated that several planet-like bodies -- including the asteroid Ceres and the newly discovered UB313, sometimes known as Xena -- will also be classified as dwarf planets. That has generated excitement among a small group of practitioners known as "minor-planet astrologers" who have long contended that outer-lying asteroids and ice balls exert a powerful tug on our psychological makeup. Some astrologers believe that officially introducing new dwarf planets to the charts might give astrologers additional information about people, by providing more planetary bodies and forces to study in the charts.

"This is a moment that I've been waiting for for a long time," says Eric Francis, a minor-planet astrologer who edits the Web site Planetwaves.net. "People are finally talking about Charon." Charon is Pluto's largest moon, which astronomers briefly considered granting official planet status at the IAU meeting.

Mr. Francis and many other minor-planet enthusiasts are interested in raising awareness about Charon and the new dwarf planets, Ceres and UB313, in part because they consider them female planets that would symbolize a rush of new maternal energy into the cosmos.

"Most of our clients are women, and we need stories women can relate to," says Mr. Francis. (A planet's sex is determined largely by the name given to it by astronomers.)

StarIQ.com astrologer Michael Wolfstar suggests that the asteroid Ceres is a humanitarian, compassionate force "associated with relief operations, the food industry, and parent-child relationships." According to the site, she is currently pushing for "the return of refugees to southern Lebanon" and "reforms in the organic-milk industry."

Even before the vote, some astrology Web sites were welcoming the potential new arrivals to the planetary fold and buzzing about how they might affect current world events, including the future of JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr. "As Ceres goes on to oppose realistic Saturn, the astrologer might reasonably expect that the DNA evidence won't match," wrote Mr. Wolfstar earlier this week.

Mr. Wolfstar says Ceres's association with the parent-child relationship connects her to the Ramsey case. At the time of Mr. Karr's arrest, Ceres was conjunct Neptune, a planet involved with imagination and fantasy. Mr. Wolfstar says that conjunction may imply that the confession wasn't reliable.

The IAU decision had less impact on some older branches of astrology that already ignore the influence of more recently discovered planets, such as Uranus (discovered in 1781) and Neptune (discovered in 1846). In the Indian tradition of Vedic astrology, for example, astrologers generally use only the first five planets. A small group of classical astrologers in the West use only the first seven. Modern astrologers, who account for an estimated 90 percent of American practitioners, have long worked with a nine-planet system.

This is also not the first time a new discovery has rocked the astrology world. In 1977, astronomer Charles Kowal discovered Chiron, a comet located between Saturn and Uranus. Some astrologers welcomed Chiron into the planetary fold, and many still use it today.

Companies that make chart-reading software for astrologers currently are adjusting their products to include more information on dwarf planets. Astrolabe, an astrology software company in Brewster, Mass., released a software patch this week for users that provides additional information on the asteroid Ceres.

"As soon as the orbital elements are released, we can incorporate new asteroids into the software," says Madalyn Hillis-Dineen, marketing director for the company. But, she adds, the company isn't about to turn its back on Pluto.

Horoscope columnists are wrestling with whether to incorporate the new crop of dwarf planets into their chart readings. Michael Lutin, columnist for Vanity Fair, says he will consider the newcomers. But he notes that they aren't likely to have massive impact on our personal lives because of their location at the outer reaches of the solar system: "UB313 is never going to tell you whether Wednesday is good for romance."\

Write to Jane Spencer at jane.spencer@wsj.com

Ceres in the JonBenet Mystery

NewsScope, August 21, 2006

The ultimate cold case suddenly became hot last week when authorities arrested John Karr as a suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder mystery. Astrologer and internet sleuth Judy Johns quickly tracked down his birth data, and posted it at politicalastrology@yahoo.com. Concurrent with the breaking news story, Ceres – describing the parent-child relationship – was a major astrological player.

Karr was born on December 11, 1964 (Hamilton, AL; time unknown). His natal Mars in Virgo is under major dynamic tension with a conjunction to the epochal Uranus-Pluto conjunction. At the time of his arrest, transiting Mars was conjunct his natal Mars, reflecting the intense action around him. Curiously, transiting Mars was making no hits to his natal chart at the time of JonBenet's murder.

The most telling astrological measurement connecting John Karr's chart to Christmas 1996 was his progressed Sun, which was exactly conjunct his natal Ceres. Ceres is a caring, loving vibration, especially in the parent-child relationship. In a pedophile's chart, Ceres can portray an abnormal sexual love of children. Karr's obsessive emails about JonBenet show his attachment to the Ceres archetype: "I can relate very well to children and the way they think and feel."

Forget opinion polls – the result is written in the stars. The author of Political Astrology, Michael O'Reilly, explains: "A major outer planet opposition between traditional, security-oriented Saturn and progressive, revolutionary Uranus takes place on Election Day, and promises to bring historical shifts in the socio-economic landscape."

John McCain

McCain was born with his Virgo Sun in the seventh house of partners. This describes how his political fortunes are directly related to his choice of partners, personal and political. His heiress wife Cindy helped him gain a foothold in Arizona politics, and his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate ignited his candidacy.

McCain was born with a celestial advantage: his Mars in Leo is a planetary signature shared by 10 of the 42 presidents. Something about the boldness and self-confidence of Mars in Leo assures many voters that he would make a good Commander-in-Chief.

Although McCain characterises himself as a "maverick", he was born with Saturn rising, helping his opponents identify him with the old guard and the disastrous Bush policies. McCain's Jupiter is in an extremely favourable place, but his age and conservative voting record (Saturn) indicate he's more connected with old ideologies. He's not the liberating Uranian influence that most American voters are looking for.

Barack Obama

Like Bill Clinton and two other presidents, Obama was born with his Sun in Leo, giving an inherent royal attitude that many Americans find unappealing. To win, the Leo who would be king must demonstrate humility and wage a populist campaign.

With Aquarius rising, Obama is seen by astrologers as the herald of a New Age – someone who knows how to use the internet, how to network grassroots support and how to bridge the gap between cultures, races and religions.

Uranus, the ruler of his horoscope, has a rare, precise alignment with the US national horoscope. This has brought him an ability to electrify crowds. His slogan of "Change" is the right sentiment for these times. Obama's Saturn is well placed in Capricorn, where it has helped him earn a reputation as a sure-footed mountain goat, never missing a step. His interest in embracing new ideas (Uranus) while upholding traditional American values and institutions (Saturn) has captured the imagination.

Michael O'Reilly is a professional astrologer living in Oregon. Read more of his predictions at www.neptunecafe.com or email him at wolfstar3@aol.com

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