SteveS wrote: ↑Sun Nov 18, 2018 6:36 am
Ebertin says: ‘Benetnash will claim human lives in calamities such as mine accidents, collapse of houses and bridges, mountain slides, earth tremors, and catastrophes caused by weather. Ebertin goes on to illustrated the period of major instability in the world that occurred as Uranus came conjunct to Benetnash at the end of July 1968.
Jim, when you have time, can you check the mundane charts with your SF version transiting Sun to Benetnash for the collapse of the two World Trade Centers in New York for 2001? Also, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, and 1906 San Francisco Earthquake? Thanks.
I'm sure Ebertin (whose fixed star book I know well) was taking these transits to the star with a one degree orb, not trying to get return-like charts to the minute. Nonetheless, before I got to the part of your post where you asked, I had already decided to check my whole SMA file against transits to this star.
The specific seems to be that planetary conjunctions with Benetnash cause large loss of human life, particularly found in mine accidents, structural collapses, earthquakes, weather catastrophes, etc. Sure, we have a few of those on file.
The fifth brightest ('Eta') star in Ursa Major, Benetnash is in the same degree as my Ascendant ecliptically, at 2°10' Virgo. Its name means "hired mourners," as stated above, and Ebertin considers it to have a nature like Mars-Uranus-Saturn. (I can't find any SF list that has this star in it so I'm just using Ebertin's 26°08' Tropical Virgo converted. It will be correct within a minute or two, good enough for present purposes.)
The test will be: Do any charts for events in my primary SMA catalogue have any planet within 1° of 2°10' Virgo. I find 15 events out of 353, including one bridge collapse, a few earthquakes, and other events listed below (I don't think things like a financial panic and Sputnik loss count as loss of life, but some of the others certainly do).
Erzincan earthquake - Neptune 1°37' Virgo (op Mars partile)
San Francisco earthquake - Jupiter 2°05' Virgo (op Venus partile)
Amatrice earthquake - Jupiter 1°36' Virgo, Mercury 2°15' Virgo
1985 Mexico City earthquake - Sun 2°00' Virgo
Hurricane Maria - Sun 2°37' Virgo
Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster - Neptune 3°02' Virgo
Dresden bombing - Jupiter 1°53' Virgo
Hiroshima bomb - Jupiter 2°18' Virgo
16 Street Baptist Church bomb - Venus 2°23' Virgo
Tultepec Fireworks Market explosion - Moon 2°07' Virgo
Chualar bus crash - Moon 1°18' Virgo (conj Sun 1°12')
Ramstein Air Show Disaster - Mercury 2°04' Virgo (sq. Saturn-Uranus partile)
Martin Luther King murder - Uranus 2°06' (op Venus 1°12')
No Direct Loss of Life
Sputnik launch - Mercury 3°04' Virgo
Panic of 1857 - Mercury 3°09' Virgo
So, first, is this in any way an unusual number of items found? More or less, each planet stands 1 chance in 180 of being within the 2° zone that is one degree either side of this longitude. As we have 10 planets in consideration, we have 10 chances in 180 of getting a random hit by
something in that zone, or about half a percent. For 353 events we would randomly expect
something to be there twice, and we have 15. That seems like a lot!
That's quantity. Anything about quality? I was intrigued how many times (6 times out of the 13 life-taking events, or about half) the planet in that degree was in close aspect to something. That seemed to highlight the passage. Often the planet crossing the star was significant to the type of event; on the other hand, the several Jupiter contacts weren't like that at all, and that weighs against it. Of 13 life-taking events, four had luminaries ("generic strong hits") to the degree. Of the 9 remaining, Mercury hit for an airplane crash, Venus for the death of two little girls, Uranus for MLK's murder (a civil rights movement eruption), Neptune for two mixed disasters, and Jupiter (most active of all) for two high-casualty earthquakes and two high-casualty devastating military bombings.
I'm troubled by the Jupiter. Nonetheless, the raw number is interesting. Notice that not a single malefic was involved except for the two Neptunes. This was otherwise all neutrals and benefics. It's quite odd in many ways, but the raw frequency of it is hard to ignore.
I'll try a different degree and see how many I get for comparison.