Provocative article on predicting 9-11

[Guest guest]

This link is to the Boston Phoenix, an alternative newspaper for

Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Yes, I did get some coverage - but the

Dec 13 article is very good on its own.

doug riemer

 

Here's the link.

 

http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/

02048780.htm

[Guest guest]

Sorry, this link to the Boston Phoenix doesn't work.

Here's the article. Hope it doesn't clog up the site.

doug riemer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boston Phoenix.com

 

 

 

 

MONDAY, JAN. 07 2002

 

----

----------

 

 

Prophets of doom

Jihad terrorists surprised America on September 11, but apparently

more than one astrologer saw it coming

BY CHRIS WRIGHT

 

 

 

 

----

----------

 

 

 

WHEN THE FIRST plane struck the World Trade Center at 8:48 a.m. on

Tuesday, September 11, President Bush was in Florida, lecturing a

classroom of second-graders about the importance of reading skills.

What was meant to be a run-of-the-mill photo op produced one of the

more telling photographs of that awful day. In it, White House chief

of staff Andrew Card is bending down to deliver the news that a

second plane had thundered into the second tower. You can see the

shock, the dread, on Bush's face. And who can blame him? America had

just been wrenched from a sunny weekday morning into a cataclysmic

war, and it seemed no one was prepared for such an event — not the

CIA, not the FBI, not the State Department, and certainly not the

president himself.

 

"I'm trying to absorb that knowledge," Bush said, recalling the

moment in a recent Newsweek interview. "I'm the commander in chief,

and the country has just come under attack."

 

Not everybody, however, was as flabbergasted by the news as the

president. In fact, there were a few Americans who responded to the

terrorist attacks with a resounding "Told you so."

 

In June 2000, Lynne Palmer, a 69-year-old Las Vegas resident,

published her Astrological Almanac for 2001 (Star Bright Publishers).

On page 95 of the book, buried among advice on the best days to go to

the movies and worst days to lend people money, Palmer had written,

in an odd combination of the obvious and the prophetic: "Avoid

terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."

 

PALMER WASN'T the only astrologer to see trouble brewing in the fall

of 2001. Apparently, the sky has been heaving with a confluence of

terrible portents lately — a Perfect Storm of clashing, menacing

astrological signs. But no one had divined upcoming events with the

acuity of the Dolly Parton–haired author of Is Your Name Lucky for

You? (Star Bright Publishers, 1999) and Astro-Guide to Nutrition and

Vitamins (American Federation of Astrologers, 1993). "Only one person

predicted the date of the attacks, and that was Lynne Palmer," says

veteran astrologer Robert Hand, a relatively highbrow practitioner of

the art. "I don't know how she did it. Things looked chaotic, but I

could not have foreseen September 11. I looked and looked and I don't

know how anyone could have predicted it to the day."

 

Palmer, meanwhile, remains unfazed by her astrological coup. "There

are certain planets that rule certain things," she says, "and those

planets were in alignment." In fact, Palmer didn't even know the

attacks had occurred until a friend told her. "I don't look at the

news much," she says. "My friend called me. I looked in my [2001]

almanac and I had it. I make all sorts of predictions and I forget

about them. But I had `Watch for danger falling from above,' `Avoid

fire.' It was eerie."

 

Eerie, yes, but not unique. Following September 11, stargazers all

over the country pored through their prior predictions to see if

they, too, had foreseen America's so-called New War. Hand was one of

the astrologers who came up trumps. In an article posted in the

August edition of the Mountain Astrologer online magazine, Hand wrote

a long, lyrical essay foretelling "restrictions on our freedom of

movement," the "ruthless energy of change," and "unrest in the Middle

East."

 

Though Hand's dates were not as specific as Palmer's — he saw strife

occurring between August 5, 2001, and May 26, 2002 — his predictions

were nonetheless chillingly prescient: "Things pass away and then

something new comes into being. We have times when things seem to

reach a period of stability and permanence; then there is a period of

decay, when they begin to break down and go wrong.... It is as though

we were driving down a well-defined road with a clear objective, and

either something we did not anticipate is forcing us onto another

road or the road itself is being transformed."

 

In April 2001, on the same site, astrologer Jim Shawvan wrote

of "something sudden" about to occur, "a surprise attack, a terrorist

bombing." He continued, "Civil wars and conflicts in the Third World

often build up slowly, with many warning signs; however, when the

only remaining superpower is attacked, the preferred approach seems

to be terrorist action with no warning." Shawvan also wrote

that "[bush] may judge it necessary to threaten or even use force in

Afghanistan or Pakistan or both."

 

In the simplest terms, Shawvan reached his conclusions by observing

the overwhelming presence of Mars — the planet of conflict and

strife — in astrological charts he had drawn up for Bush. There was

also, he says, a Mars line going through a map of Afghanistan. With

this knowledge in hand, he deduced that there'd be the potential for

America to go to war with Afghanistan. In an earlier interview with

the Phoenix (see "Calling the Shots," This Just In, October 11),

Shawvan called his predictions "purely an intellectual exercise." He

added, "You use your knowledge of the facts and then put things

together."

 

Such a commonsensical approach to astrology is surprisingly common.

Indeed, many astrologers view themselves as more aligned with

sociologists and historians than with psychics and mediums. "This is

not closing your eyes and seeing things," says Hand, who also named

Afghanistan as a potential point of international conflict. "I

specifically named Afghanistan based on historical probability. You

have to know something about the world."

 

Shortly after the terrorist attacks, the astrological publisher

Llewellyn Booksellers published Civilization Attacked: September 11,

2001 & Beyond, in which a selection of America's top-shelf

astrologers weighed in on such topics as "The psychology of

terrorism" and "The long-range effects of September 11, 2001." One of

the more remarkable aspects of the book is an accompanying blurb from

its publisher, Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, who wrote that astrology

is "the one science that can analyze time to bring understanding

about the antecedents of the event, about the people involved in

carrying it out, and the forecasts helpful to decisions that must be

made."

 

The "science" claim notwithstanding, most astrologers will readily

admit that making predictions based on planetary movements is

essentially an intuitive pursuit. "Astrology is not a science," says

Hand. "It's a craft. It has no solid foundation. We don't have a

theoretical structure from which we make our predictions. We really

don't know what causes these influences. We don't know that at all."

 

 

INDEED, DESPITE the intellectual veneer afforded the practice by the

likes of Shawvan and Hand, astrology relies to a great extent on the

kind of symbolism that used to get medieval Gnostics hot under their

burlap collars. "Here's a little bit of weirdness," says Hand, his

voice rising in pitch. "The World Trade Center was opened when Saturn

was in Gemini. It collapsed when Saturn was in Gemini. And what does

the World Trade Center look like? What did it look like? A gigantic

Gemini glyph! That fits into the category of one of those ooh-ooh-ooh

moments."

 

The most significant ooh-ooh-ooh moment for many astrologers in the

months preceding September 11 came when they noticed a relatively

rare opposing alignment of two fundamentally opposed planets: Pluto

and Saturn — the planet of wrenching change and the planet of

adamantine continuity. As Hand points out, the last time such an

opposition occurred, the Soviets were embroiled in a bloody conflict

in Afghanistan. "They stand like two opponents facing off against

each other," he wrote in his Mountain Astrologer essay. "The medieval

astrologers referred to the opposition as the aspect of perfect or

complete hostility. They regarded it as the worst possible aspect

between two bodies."

 

In the introduction to Civilization Attacked, astrologer Stephanie

Clement wrote, "Throughout this book, the authors make frequent

mention of Saturn and Pluto and their relation in the sky right now.

They are in opposite parts of the heavens, very close to 180 degrees

apart.... Together, Saturn and Pluto reflect qualities of cruelty, a

tendency towards violence, and fanatical adherence to one's

principles. This is not a fun combination."

 

Quite. Yet it's easy to say such things with the benefit of

hindsight. The fact is, any practitioner of mundane astrology — which

entails the study of societal forces — worth his or her salt should

have spotted the danger before the events of September 11 took place.

Yet only a handful actually did this — at least publicly. One

astrologer who did was Doug Riemer, a practitioner of Indian, or

Vedic, astrology. In a newsletter he sent out at the end of August,

Riemer wrote, "There may be some religious fanaticism.... Mideast

stuff? I see 9/10–9/14 as being really bizarre.... Although everyone

should use care in their activities during the entire month, this 4

day period is exceptional. To avoid problems, stay alert to your

environment and avoid risky situations."

 

Like Shawvan, Riemer based his predictions largely on the looming

presence of Mars. "In the latter part of August, Mars — the planet of

war, desire, anger, sex, all these worldly things — moved into the

sign of Sagittarius," he explains. "Mars went into the sign of

Sagittarius in Jupiter. Jupiter is religion and philosophy. At the

same time, Mars crossed one of the eclipse points of the moon.

Eclipse points are very frightening. When you have all this come

together, it leads to a righteous, seething anger. It can create

craziness and fanaticism. I remember looking at this and

thinking, `Wait a minute. Something terrible is going to happen.' "

 

Despite the accuracy of his predictions, Riemer admits to being

disappointed that he didn't call the exact date of the attacks. "My

mistake was saying the 10th to the 14th," he says. "Because each

planet has its own day of the week, and Mars's day is Tuesday. I

missed that, otherwise I'd have said Tuesday morning."

 

MAKING ACCURATE predictions is all well and good, but beyond reading

their horoscopes in the newspapers every now and then, do Americans

actually take any notice of this stuff? "Well, I have one client who

called me a week before the catastrophe," says Riemer. "She told me

she was flying from Washington, DC, to New Orleans and I said, `Okay,

but get home before the 10th.' She called me that Tuesday morning and

said, `Thank God I didn't stay until the 11th!' She thought I'd saved

her life. Certainly, she'd have been stuck in Washington having a

horrible time. Astrology is not just knowing about life, it's

planning the life, taking advantage of opportunity, and overcoming

challenge."

 

He adds, "It would have been helpful if someone in government had

taken notice of some of these predictions."

 

Fat chance. Not since the astrology-loving Nancy Reagan inhabited the

White House have astrologers had the luxury of having a president who

took them seriously. "We deal with individual people who study our

stuff," says Hand. "We can give those people ways of making things

work better in their lives. But when we make predictions for public

events, we have no impact. We can't say, `This is going to happen, so

we should do this now.' No one pays any attention. People don't give

a damn. So we can only say, `Okay, here comes the shit about to hit

the wall.' More importantly, not only do people not listen, when we

get it right they explain it away afterwards. Well, this current

opposition [of Saturn and Pluto] will be hard to explain away."

 

Such frustration is commonplace among astrologists. "I've had clients

ignore my advice for 44 years; you get used to it," says

Palmer. "People are afraid to look at this stuff. It's scary. But

fear attracts fear. We have to raise our consciousness and see what

we can do to rise above these bad aspects. But people aren't looking.

They're in denial."

 

Nonetheless, says Riemer, widespread dismissal of the astrologer's

work does not make that work any less important. "For an astrologer

to say, `Don't bother telling because no one's going to listen' —

that's self-defeating," he says. "I think we have a duty and a

responsibility to publish our predictions. We should keep information

available. Because, and I'm serious about this, there is a huge train

wreck coming. The train is about to come off the tracks."

 

Well, of course we don't want to hear predictions like that. It's

unsettling enough to think that there may be a cosmic equivalent of

the TV Guide ("Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., Chris Wright goes out and gets

drunk [repeat]"), let alone that there's a train wreck a-

coming. "Americans hate fate," says Riemer. "Well, there is fate in

genetics — you were fated to have a certain height, certain skills.

And you were fated to have free will. Astrology indicates free will,

it unveils hidden karmas."

 

Fair enough, but who really wants to discover that his or her hidden

karma involves a date with an errant 747? After all, it's one thing

to fret about an impending catastrophe, but it's another thing

entirely to be told that the catastrophe is bearing down upon us,

preordained and inescapable. This objection, astrologers insist,

reflects a fundamental misreading of the relationship between

astrology and determinism.

 

"What people who don't study astrology don't understand," says

Hand, "is that there is a bivalence involved. There are two

possibilities — one good, one bad. Astrology helps us understand what

must be done now to face the future. A lot of people believe that

astrology can show that everything is preordained, and I don't

believe that. There is indeterminacy everywhere, in physics,

everywhere. Will is indeterminate. That there will be a certain

crisis on a certain date might be determined, but how we handle it is

not. If change was not possible, then astrology would be pointless."

 

INDETERMINACY COULD very well be the only bright spot at the end of

our collective tunnel, because if our astrologers have got it right,

we're in for a very grim few years indeed.

 

"In late April, early May [2002]," says Doug Riemer, "the sign of

Taurus (material things), Saturn (restriction), Mars (war), and Rahu

(fanaticism) all come together. It's a terrible combination, and I

think there is going to be incredible violence unless we resolve

things now. We have a choice, we fix things now or we have a major

war in the spring and it's going to be horrible. All astrologers are

worried about this. Enlightened beings are very concerned about the

next five or six years. This is a very sensitive period."

 

Lynne Palmer's predictions are equally dismal. "The New York chart

has some rough aspects coming up, scary ones," she says. "New York

City has to be very careful of more air crashes and sleeping

terrorists. And charts for the US have very bad, very deep problems,

very bad. The aspect of Saturn and Pluto are coming back next year,

even worse than now. The really rough period is going to be from

February 2003 going into 2005. Pluto is ascending. Pluto rules

missiles. We could have a nuclear attack or germ warfare."

 

Until that happens, though, there's the business of everyday life to

take care of. Palmer, for instance, recommends that Americans use

caution when having pedicures next year. Early 2002 seems to be a

particularly bad patch. "Do not," Palmer writes in her almanac for

the year, "cut ingrown toenails on the following dates: January 1, 2,

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ..."

 

 

Chris Wright can be reached at cwright

 

 

 

page 1

 

Issue December 13 - 20, 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vedic astrology, "vedicpr" <vedic@k...> wrote:

> This link is to the Boston Phoenix, an alternative newspaper for

> Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Yes, I did get some coverage - but the

> Dec 13 article is very good on its own.

> doug riemer

>

> Here's the link.

>

>

http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/documents/

> 02048780.htm