A CONVERSATION: What's Wrong With the Boyd Chart ?

[Guest guest]

Yours truly, "JTWB", recently chatted with a siderealist of the Western persuasion, who is a true believer in Helen Boyd's renowned birth chart for the USA, dated July 6, 1775. The siderealist's name, his nom de plume here, is that of "ASTROanonymous".

THE CONVERSATION:

ASTROanonymous:

"The "Declaration of Taking Up Arms", issued by Congress on July 6, 1775, is the basis of the so-called "Boyd" chart for the U.S., often called the "Declaration of War" chart, an unfortunate label that has caused a lot of confusion and hostility in the astrological community, since the historical document is certainly not a declaration of war."

JTWB:

Agree. Completely.

ASTROanonymous:

Nevertheless, the document very explicitly refers to a context of war, of open military conflict, and its passionate wording is a vehement moral, religious, philosophical, and legal justification for "taking up arms" against England. It is "the" legal document in American independence history that explains the reasons for waging war against another country.JTWB:

No, that's not how it reads. This document is not at all, whatsoever, either a "legal document" or a generic explanation of the "reasons for waging war against another country." To believe that much is to do so by an unwarranted inferential leap from historical facts to poetic imagery. Nor did the Americans see it that way at the time, because they considered themselves to be, because they were in fact 'BRITISH Americans'. Until July 1776 Americans never considered the conflict to be with an invader from "another country." The conflict was understood to be with Parliament, not the King, and because of Parliament's widely perceived violations of the British Constitution. In July 1775 the great majority of Americans steadfastly resisted thinking this conflict to be "with Great Britain", because they considered themselves to be an integral part there of, to be part of "political Britain", which meant the State of the Kingdoms of Great Britain. However, they did all the more

believe that the Government of Great Britain in Parliament had no constitutional authority in the governance of the Colonies. Americans then maintained: Same State: 'Yes". Same Government: "No"

ASTROanonymous:

There are 3 points at stake here:

JTWB:

Only 3 ?

ASTROanonymous:

"Nations" do not have only one valid birth chart. It is always possible to establish the significance or transcendence of other historical moments that can be used effectively as radicals

JTWB:

"More than one valid birth chart" for one Nation, you say? "Not true"! [Exclamation point]. [Full Stop]. Indisputably, standard mundane astrological terminology properly borrows from the sciences of history and politics as it so defines the "Nation" as the "Political Nation", which is comprised of its sovereign constituent or constitutents (whether singular or plural), whether said constituent be democratic, monarchic etc.. For example, the sovereign constituents of the United States are the People. The Constitution of 1787 is still in force in formal acknowledgment of this fact. Apparently insufficiently understood by astrologers is that the political nation is "The State", conventionally understood by political scientists. In America: "The People" is "The State". Long experience demonstrates that for any one country's State there is BUT ONE valid birth chart, which, again, is the "Political Nation", which is also called, commonly enough, the "Nation", which entity, anywhere and

everywhere, is created at a determinate date and time moment, notwithstanding the difficulties in establishing the precise rectified time moment in some instances. In America the State was born on July 2, 1776, as attested repeatedly and "unanimously" by competent professional historical scholarship for the past 155 years, since Benson Lossing's in 1850. [i maintain a growing file of now 75 references.] [About this, you may wish to phone Pauline Maier, Professor of History at M.I.T., author of AMERICAN SCRIPTURE. She can explain this background to you, if she can possibly spare the time. Alternatively, I have her e-mail address, if you care to write. Professor Maier is very charming, as well.]

If, however, by your use of the term Nation you mean to say the "Cultural/Geographic Nation", not the Political Nation, then this is how I might readily agree: To illustrate: "The USA" is "The United States of America", which is the political nation, which is the American State, which is, as in the name, ""United States"", located culturally and geographically, "of" and "in", America ["America", that handy Anglo-Saxon term for English speaking North America, which term is understandably so annoying, if not galling, to many Latin Americans]. Undoubtedly America's history is comprised of various, countless mundane events, among which many others is the birth of the USA. There are innumerable possibilities for mundane American birth charts. However, there remains but one possible USA birth chart, and indisputably there was no entity "U.S." or "USA" prior to July 2, 1776. For one to propose a USA birth chart for any other, any EARLIER date than July 2, 1776 is to propose a

counter-factual absurdity {while, on the contrary, any proposed date after July 2, 1776 is not absurd; just plainly wrong.}. For any one astrologer to deny this categorical statement is to object to professionally recognized facts based on commonly employed concepts and definitions, to embrace a position that is both incoherent and unintelligible, leaving whichever astrologer-in-denial free to carry on, to just "make it up" as he or she proceeds. I conclude that this becomes truly a suitable domain for modern occult astrology: because by a shear act of will the occult astrologer just knows because the transits, Ascendant, Moon and whatever, when sufficiently progressed or precessed, just make it so. Just look at it, they might say, and Behold! The established historical record of event-related human actions no longer really matters to these deniers, if it ever did. This is surely Empiricism run amok.

Among the numerous possible important mundane ""American"" birth charts, here are my favorite THIRTEEN, among others: (01) The Association, October 20, 1774 (Event: union of the American colonies). (02) Continental Army, June 14, 1775 (Event: U.S. armed forces born). (03) Washington Takes Command in the field, July 2, 1775 (Event: War leadership born). (04)Thirteen United Colonies, July 20, 1775 (Event: Georgia joins the United Colonies making for "13", no longer "12"). (05) Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 (Event: Preamble-Charter of the U.S. Bill of Rights). (06) Articles of Confederation (Adopted), November 15, 1777 (Event: First constitution framed, not ratified). (07) 2 Treaties with France, February 6, 1778 (Event: first diplomatic recognition of the U.S.). (08) Articles of Confederation (Ratified), March 1, 1781 (Event: U.S. constitutional government, the Republic, born). (09) Battle of Yorktown Triumph, October 19, 1781 (Event: Great Britain's will to prosecute

the war broken). (10) 2 Treaties Paris/Versailles, September 3, 1783 (Event: Peace & U.K. diplomatic recognition of the U.S.). (10) Second Constitution (Adopted), September 17, 1787 (Event: First Constitution perfected; Federalism born). (11) Congress recognizes 2nd Constitution's ratification, July 2, 1788 (Event: 1st constitution officially set to expire). (12) Washington's 1st Inauguration, April 30, 1789 (Event: Advent of Presidential government). (13) Washington Reappointed Armed Forces Chief, July 2, 1798 (Event: First national defense preparations under the Republic).

ASTROanonymous:

Since what constitutes "the birth" of a nation is a question of interpretation that can be seen from many different points of view. One point of view --one chart-- will prove better than the others within the limitations of a specific context of analysis.

JTWB:

Agreed that astrological analysis rests on an adequate scope for interpretation and its context. Interpretation taking its cue from historical and political facts is just what mundane astrologers appear to be endeavoring to accomplish as a matter of routine. But, if you are suggesting that one mis-informed opinion is as good as another informed opinion, or if you are suggesting that because human cognition, being what it is in its limitations, that one can never achieve certainty about the nature and approximate timing of a given mundane event without first applying empirical techniques, then I cannot agree. Quite to the contrary, empirical techniques can surely demonstrate that for a given year there are numerous dates on which the planetary configurations may well substantiate the anti-historical claims for the significance of a presumed mundane event. After all, Helen Boyd's work is a case in point; no closure at 11:00 am on July 6, 1775, and yet she discovered what she

steadfastly maintained to be the true national birth moment. How convenient ! How simply occult !

ASTROanonymous

Historical reasoning alone must not over-ride empirical testing. Some charts work better than others, and once the relative significance of a historical moment is established, it can prove to be a better radical than some other chart that would seem historically more appropriate. Sometimes, the real link in the chain, the key astrological moment, may be historically less dramatic than other moments. "Historically significant" should not substitute "astrologically significant"

JTWB

As a formal point of methodology, competent historical analysis trumps empiricism every time. The "historically significant" is all there is in identifying and characterizing a given mundane event. Empirical testing can only narrow the time moment choice set in the process of rectifying from the approximate to the precise; it cannot frame the terms of the event itself, as fallaciously presumed by the Boyd Chart. However, if you are saying that there are exceptional historical circumstances not easily conformable to established interpretations, then of course, I agree. The Canadian nation is a case in point. By which I mean that the Canadian elites achieved independence not by prior State formation (as best I can judge from very limited study) but constitutionally, on 1 January 1842, without formally declaring independence to be so. But I digress here only to acknowledge that, yes, as it were, sometimes algebra is required where simple arithmetic doesn't suffice.

Furthermore, empirical testing is what I take to be one of the tools in the box brought to a given task at hand once the historical and political facts-in-context have been established. Witness September 17, 1787. Historians Catherine Bowen and Max Farrand tell us that the records of the day report a signing ceremony commenced minutes after 3:00 pm, with 39 signatures to this event's closure. Here's where proper rectification technique ought to take over. Closure: at 3:25 ? at 3:30 ? at 3:35 ? It's now time for empirical testing to determine precisely the time moment. After all, empiricism ought to occasionally earn its keep. For an example on the other hand, of empiricism in the extreme, there is Rick Houck's USA chart for June 19, 1776 (11:53:50) on which day absolutely nothing of mundane significance happened. Nothing whatsoever ! If I didn't know otherwise I'd say he hoaxed the entire astrology profession. To the serious student of history this represents the work of a clown.

Again, an instance of the absurdities tolerated in modern occult astrology; Empiricism run amok. (However, to his credit, Nick Campion appears to have passed on the chance to include Houck's chart in his classic mundane astrology book, the 1999 edition anyway.)

ASTROanonymous:

Corrections for precession produce totally different results in the timing of events when analyzing the charts of nations that are over 1 or 2 centuries old, so no conclusion about the validity of any chart can be definitive until a comparison has been made between the tropical and sidereal reference frames, regardless of the signs of the zodiac. This is particularly the case of the Boyd chart, which has been validated using sidereal techniques.

JTWB:

Refined astrological technique is not a worthy substitute for the requisite degree of coherence and intelligibility in framing the identity of the mundane event first. Empirical technique is a follower, not a leader. I rest my case with the patently anti-historical assumptions embedded in the Boyd Chart, the Houck Chart, or for another instance, that lugubrious Gemini Rising chart for the wee hours of July 4th 1776, at which time of the night even the Masonic conspirators among the delegates were reportedly fast asleep. That's the Gemini Rising Chart of Luke Boughton/Evangeline Adams/Carolyn Dodson/Doris Doan/Laurie Effrein/Clement Hay and only God knows how many hundreds of others. A testament to the powerful seductiveness of anti-historical theorizing in overcoming incontestable common sense..

ASTROanonymous:

The point in time that one chooses to establish when something is born in the continuous uninterrupted flow of history is mostly arbitrary. What is important is that one defines the criteria for making the choice. But nobody has ever dictated that the significant moment must be the one when the "full-blown" or mature thing appears. A small baby is not yet a mature man, he is very fragile and cannot articulate himself, but he is already a man nevertheless.

JTWB:

After quite agreeing with the importance of "defining one's choice criteria", I take it on an act of faith that you seriously believe the rest of what you have just said. Arbitrariness is the very premise embraced by the extreme variants of empiricism. There's nothing arbitrary in the competent identification of the historical dimensions of a particular mundane event. By contrast, if anyone were to insist that "The USA" was born in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia, that insistence would easily qualify as an instance of arbitrary reasoning. A noteworthy pre-natal moment? Hardly. But I would give it a shot and listen for a few minutes to an argument attempting to justify it as pre-natal; but, however, all the most gifted sidereal techniques cannot transform this event into the natal moment for the USA.

ASTROanonymous

There is always one cause behind the other, i.e., every cause is the effect of a previous cause. The "Federal Republic of the United States of America" did not appear all of a sudden, and there are different moments in the process that other astrologers and historians with a different mindset will find more interesting or significant to define what could or should be used to astrologically represent the US, depending on what they are looking for.

JTWB:

There you go again. To wit: "what should be used to astrologically represent the U.S." in a discussion point referencing the Federal Republic. The existence of the U.S. predates the existences of the 1781 Confederal Republic and the 1788 Federal Republic, because the U.S. created both these Republics. So a discussion of the Republic presumes the prior existence of the United States. The United States of America, "the People" as democratic State, "re-established" a republican constitution in 1788 in order to form the Federal Government under the powers granted by the second constitution of the USA "in order to form a more perfect union". Hence the expression "constitutional republic". [under the first constitution, the Republic was a confederacy, strictly speaking, not Federal] The Republic, as such, was first founded on March 1, 1781 @ 12:00 noon (not 15:19), at the time of the final 13th ratifiying signature on the Articles of Confederation. By the way, many American Masonic

organizations insist on this time moment precise point of history in commemorating the founding of the Republic.

These historical facts precedent to the 2nd Constitution's Republic limit the mundane investigator's calendar of possible dates to 1787 and after, since you have raised the matter specifically about the "Federal Republic": Which possible dates may be one of the following: September 17, 1787; June 26, 1788; July 2, 1788; September 13, 1788; March 4, 1789 or April 30, 1789. Here's your choice set of 6 dates. Now the hard part. QUESTION: Was the Federal Republic born of and at the time of the 2nd Constitution itself or at the time of the Government born under the 2nd Constitution? A political scientist can answer this question; astrologers qua astrologers can't. Emprical methods offer no escape from these mundane facts; to the contrary, the facts must first be ascertained before one gets empirical. Here's a case of two distinct mundane entities: Clearly, the Constitution is not the Government. However, in the event you may still be unclear about their common sponsorship: neither the

Constitution, nor the resulting Government is the State, the State which is the USA. The USA as sponsor wrote the Constitution and then moved to establish the Federal Government in accordance with that Constitution. Those astrologers who maintain that the USA was born on any of these dates for 1787 and onwards are just ignorant of the facts of history and political science. They may confuse the State for the Constitution or the Constitution for the Government or the State for the Government. But confusion is just that. And it really is just that much black and white.

ASTROanonymous:

For example, many are not interested in arid political definitions but in what people feel and believe, and it is very easy to argue what constitutes the US for many is all those high ideals and clear intentions put in the Declaration of Independence, and what came later in terms of political structuring is only secondary. I personally think that the identification with the Declaration of Independence is sheer mythology, but this is what a lot of people feel, and therefore this moment is or should prove to be astrologically very significant.

JTWB:

For those astrologers who are steadfastly contemptuous of what you have referred to as "arid political definitions", I recommend that they should avoid mundane astrology at all costs and stick to natal astrology. Less chance of making complete asses of themselves. But, having declared that much, I heartily agree with you that the Declaration of Independence as a distinct mundane event is purely mythological with respect to its current emotional place in the nation's history. It's role in the founding of the USA was secondary and supportive of the prior act of separation on July 2nd.. But factually, it was the USA which wrote that Declaration; the USA which existed prior to the date of the Declaration of July 4th. The United States existed from July 2nd.

ASTROanonymous:

By the same token, using another set of criteria, others will find that the significant events that defined the US as independent from Britain are to be found in the first violent clashes in early 1775 between British troops and colonial militiamen. That is where it all started, when the first shots were fired against each other, and there is a historical document that resulted from this and which contains the feelings of those who dared to do it. Psychologically, these clashes, and the document that resulted from them, is the fundamental "break" with the motherland, and everything that came later was a consequence of this.

JTWB:

Yes, the Battles at Lexington and Concord were a major mundane moment, so determinative of eventual sovereign independence as to be deserving of the designation: the major PRE-NATAL mundane moment prior to July 2, 1776.

ASTROanonymous:

The "Declaration of Taking Up Arms" of July 6, 1775 is a denunciation of British imperialism and a call to fight against it with arms. Reading it, I can understand why a chart made for that moment has been so effective to many astrologers in the past when there is a US armed conflict. Since it is well-known that the US has the habit of militarily intervening in many countries around the world (I am from a region with a long history of these interventions), it is no wonder that some very critical political astrologers like Jim Lewis and Jim Erickson considered this to be the US national chart.

JTWB:

Wrong characterization. To suggest that this Declaration was a call for combat against the Empire is patently rediculous. That Declaration did not condemn British Imperialism, nor King George III for that matter. It was directed exclusively at Parliament and its policies and, by implication, a certain concerned Ministry. The purport of that Declaration is RECONCILIATION. Not WAR. The time of 11:00 am for the Boyd Chart is completely arbitrary, anti-historical. At least 7 hours off. Boyd would have been equally justified and no more wrong if she had just picked another date in 1775, as it were out of a hat. If to be 7 hours wrong is OK, empirically, then why not 7 days, or 7 weeks or 7 months?

One may easily imagine an enterprising young astrologer provisioned with the requisite will power, the cognitive capacities of Gauquelin and an adequate computer program. He could then select dozens of event dates in 1775, identify evidences of similar astrologically meaningful correspondences in transits and aspects. What would that prove? About as much as the Boyd Chart proves. That when empiricism runs amok, no absurdity is thought to be either unscientific or undignified.

ASTROanonymous:

The problem, it seems to me, is not that the historical moment of the "Declaration of Taking Up Arms" is not strongly significant in itself, but the incapacity of some --or many-- astrologers to think in terms of symbols and of signs, rather than in an exclusively legalistic, cause-and-effect understanding of historical significance.

JTWB:

Let's see if I understand you: By your reckoning the precise time moment that the formal adopted Resolve of Congress was voted to authorize the publication of the finished text of this Declaration doesn't really matter. That's what you are saying. So if the astrologer only gets the date right, he has a methodological license to wax metaphorical, opt for the symbolic aliteral conceptualization and just look for the best rectified time-fit during that 24 hour interval. Hmm. RADICAL !

ASTROanonymous:

When we make mundane work, we use metaphors that determine our approach to it. Legal metaphors have their requirements and criteria of validity, but they are not the only metaphors that can be used. Depending on the education and values of the astrologer, he or she will use metaphors that are consistent with the personal paradigms with which "things" are interpreted and given meaning.

JTWB:

If I understand you correctly: In your view proper mundane methodology is an exercise in systematic uses of metaphor that lets the astrologer feel comfortable with his particular education and values. So this would possibly allow his work to be considered authoritative, even if he's ignorant of the basic historical facts he is dealing with? What if he doesn't have hardly a clue about the difference between a State and a Government? You know, like Joseph Stalin. A dictator. But for such an astrologer, he just may become a veritable dictator of the historical record, because if the arid detail of the record has no place in his methodology, he can just make-it-up.Hmm! Sounds to me like the prescription for a medieval guild for the totally incompetent. By implication, I am certainly grateful that medical doctors don't embrace these same such methodological assumptions. Just think of the sky high mortality rates, if they were to do so..

ASTROanonymous:

So, the biographical metaphor in mundane work uses very different criteria of validity than the conventional approach. The criteria of validity and significance of a specific historical moment always differs depending on what one is looking for. Astrological significance is not a function of legal definitions or legalities exclusively; it is also a function of the meaning of an experience in the consciousness of those involved.

JTWB:

Would perhaps the "meaning of an experience in the consciouness of those involved" include the individual consiousness of each of the delegates to the Congress on July 6, 1775?. I somehow am left with the distinct impression from my own reading of the history that these delegates were likely very much CONSCIOUS of what they were about that day, and that your privately discovered metaphorical factoid that these delegates somehow un-consciously, then and there, presided at the birth of the USA at 11:00 am. that day is rather hard to believe, or even imagine, outside of a Hollywood movie. I just can't quite grasp that metaphor of yours. Somehow this just doesn't sound like the Founding Fathers I've come to know.

Have to say Sorry and sign off now, ASTROanonymous. Can't buy it, all this esoteric methodology of your own making. That "dog" won't hunt on my property. I'll stick with the tried and true; the conventional approach. When the Founding Fathers on July 2, 1776 declared the colonies to be States, Free and Independent, they, all 44 of them, were more than likely very conscious that a new nation was born in their presence. And I remain confident that it was so because John Adams effused in writing over it; and the local newspapers reported it that evening and the next day; and, as well, the venerable Secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, recorded it as so in the official Journal of Congress, making it official for Congress and at the same time making it legally enacted for each of the concerned States. Yeah, Guess I'm kind of old fashioned that way.

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