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Jupiter's antiscion is 16 degrees Virgo 32 minutes in her twelfth house, opposition her Moon in Pisces in the Sixth house.

I have no idea how this would manifest as I usually use the outer planets. Any inference I tried would be using the comments people have already made here.

I wonder what effect it would have had on her when her converse Solar Arc Ascendant was conjunct Jupiter's antiscion in her twelfth house and her converse Solar Arc Descendant was conjunct her Moon in her sixth house, around the age of 9 or 10.

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Adding some more possibilities of the 3rd house Mercury and Venus in Scorpio:
1. An Activist who writes about sexual taboos (as Tanit pointed out) or sexual exploitation or racial discrimination
2. A Doctor/Scientist who writes about drugs, drug abuse, food additives, restricted diet, poisons
3. or simply a murder mystery fiction writer
4. With the moon applying to Venus - she could be an actress, singer or dancer as well
The 3rd house Mercury, Venus could also signify her siblings, in which case there is a possibility of her sister being a victim.
Moon in 7th could be consultation work regarding these topics.

Her research work mainly derived from her higher education and/or risky travels and exploration (Part of Fortune in 9th sign / 8th quadrant)

The generosity between Venus and Mars (Mars in Venus' sign, Venus in Mars sign) is problematic as both are in their detriment. This relationship (along with Jupiter ruling the Moon) is what relates or pulls the Mercury-Venus-Moon configuration to the Sun-Mars-oppose-Saturn-Jupiter configuration.

Sun conjunct Mars in 2nd - both afflicted (Sun in fall, Mars in detriment) could indicate death of husband or divorce (placed 8th from 7th) leading to costly legal battles (Jupiter rules 7th); it could involve difficulties with children also or maybe illness - Saturn rules 5th and 6th in its Fall in Aries - maybe related to custody of children in a divorce or maybe loss of child (as Wade suggested) - Sun ruler of 8th from 5th - opposes Saturn, ruler of 5th.

Agree with dark complexion observation by Wade - both ASC ruler and ASC decan ruler in Scorpio - dark, intense eyes, coarse hair.

Vasanth

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Hello Everyone,

Before revealing the identity of our Mystery chart person I am displaying the chart with outer planets and several other points used by modernists. Do they really add anything to our delineations already made or simply distract attention from the essential features of a chart?

I call this modern approach to delineation 'the greedy pizza topping'' !

I aim to wrap this up by Saturday morning UK time.

Mark
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As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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Venus opposite Neptune and Moon sextile Neptune certainly supports the argument of being a writer, and of creativity in the individual. Moon opposite Uranus in the 12th seems like someone who needs a lot of freedom and for creative expression, and that they would be difficult to live with, especially during that time period. These types of people have a strange longing for closeness but at the same time need freedom, so it is difficult to ever really please their needs. This would also support a woman who is more progressive than traditional. Additionally, she has Mercury sextile Uranus, which may show interest in technology or science (or at least new ways of thinking), and Moon opposite Uranus can show someone who has creative bursts of ideas that are good for those types of subjects.

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I do apologise to you all for the excessive hiatus in posting up the result of the Mystery chart. I am afraid a combination of ill health, excessive work pressures and some family issues all coalesced to dramatically curtail my online activity over the last few months. Judging by the astonishingly accurate content of most posts here I don’t think the identity of this person will be much of a surprise by now.
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The chart belongs to Marie Stopes a famous British author, scientist, and birth control campaigner Stopes was in that generation of women who were the pioneers in taking up academic positions at UK Universities. She was the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. Stopes academic specialism was as a palaeobotanist and she made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification.
However, Stopes enduring fame has come due to her relentless campaigning for women’s right to free birth control and her establishment of clinics across Britain to that end. Some contemporary Feminists present Stopes as a heroine in the campaign to give women control over their reproductive rights. However, this is a rather one dimensional view which obscures an all together darker side of Stopes. Stopes motivation for advocating birth control was driven by an almost fanatical belief in the efficacy of human eugenics. Stopes passionately advocated that the lower classes, those with lower IQs, and certain races were genetically inferior and should be encouraged and supported not to reproduce offspring.

Nearly all of you seem to have worked out we were looking at someone for whom writing was a significant activity. Stopes wrote numerous academic papers, books and pamphlets advocating birth control and even plays and poems to that end. I suppose the career options for a woman in the early 20th century were much more limited and the Mercury was quite prominent in the chart. Still, some of you also picked up that her themes often related to sexuality.

A summary of your comments on this:

Vasanth wrote:
A writer/activist who writes about exploitation or is exploited; and is crippled financially due to mismanagement, bad debts or illness

based on
1. Mercury in 3rd ruling ASC/MC
2. Moon separating from Mercury and applying to Venus
3. Opposition of Sun/Mars and Saturn/Jupiter in 2nd/8th houses
James wrote:
as i read it - mercury, ruler of the ascendant in the 3rd conjunct venus and both trine moon in the 6th house - 7th sign- probably a writer.. someone outspoken on sexual issues too as i read it. ….. a writer seems the most likely profession... i look forward to learning who it is.. thanks.
Wade wrote:
I'd agree with the others that it looks like her weapon was very likely her pen. Virgo rising, Moon in trine to Mercury, Mercury and Venus conjunct with Venus in the 3rd, Mercury ruling the 10th. but I have to imagine there was a fair deal of trouble here. South Node in the 10th, the Sun and Mars opposing Saturn from signs of debility, Mars ruling the 3rd and 8th bringing together significations of writing and loss/difficulty, the dispositor of Sun/Mars being Venus in the 3rd in sign of fall.
Tanit wrote:
I agree with what others said about her being a writer, and her writing likely involved taboo sexual topics - a sign of Mercury rising, MercuAsry ruling the 10th and probably in the 3rd in Regiomonatnus (?) conjunct a detrimented Venus.
Equally, most of you correctly identified that this nativity was a likely campaigner/activist of some sort. Wade’s comment went further and precisely pinpointed the focus of her activism. Its certainly a 5th house issue but also has a connection to the 8th house too in terms of the prevention of birth rather than the creation of children.

Arvind wrote:
Of course the first thing that jumps out is the partile opposition between Mars and retrograde Saturn. This is some crazy energy between two natural malefics that also happen to be functional malefics since Mars rules the eighth and Mars the sixth. Saturn also occupying the eighth to boot. Hmm, what to make of that! As a woman born in the Victorian era, this would help her to stand out in a male dominated society for sure. She is definitely a unique individual. Very focused, very disciplined mentally and emotionally
James wrote
sun/ mars in opp to saturn over the 2nd8th houses with mars ruling the 3rd/8th, while saturn rules the 5/6.. no children.. maybe some early lesbian rights proponent...
Wade wrote:
I have to agree with what most everyone has said -- the Sun/Mars conjunction in opposition to Saturn is the most striking feature of this chart. here we have three masculine planets in masculine signs, with quite forcible aspects involved (the conjunction and opposition). knowing that she's a female, it does seem to me that this planetary backdrop would encourage the native to grow into a vocal opponent of public opinion/policy regarding something very close to the native's heart. I'm not entirely sure what that is, though I'm tempted to connect it back to the 5th and 8th houses somehow. this is because it's the Sun and Mars 'teaming up', as it were, against a retrograde Saturn in the 8th, Saturn ruling the 5th. retrograde Saturn.. hm, perhaps an opponent of a regressive stance on something concerning 5th house affairs? others have mentioned children or creativity, I think the angle on children might make the most sense (and when the 8th house is joined with the 5th, we might have to connect images of life and death of children and one's issue). but perhaps this is actually about censorship and not about children at all (trying to weave in the 'creativity' theme instead, but not sure how to without understand the context of the time in which this native lived).


On the difficult and unconventional nature of Stope’s marriages and her relationships in general we again had some spot on comments.

Arvind wrote:
The Piscean Moon's close trine to Venus and the wider trine to Mercury gives a "my way or the highway" slant to her emotional makeup and relationships/sex.

Your delineation is correct regarding Stopes but I must admit I would never have got that from this configuration myself.

James wrote:
i am wondering if she married..i think the mars/saturn opposition in her chart would make it difficult, however i do feel there is a need for a partnership of sorts - moon in pisces in the 7th sign - jupiter in aries in the 7th house area..
Tanit wrote:
Someone mentioned her having a difficult love life, and I would say that makes sense to me as well with her Sun/Mars conjunction opposite Saturn, but also due to the 7th ruler being retrograde and in the 8th. She may have experienced a death of a husband and likely married more than once with Pisces (fruitful) on the descendant and her Sun and Jupiter in cardinal signs (signifying more than one).
Wade wrote:
….perhaps she married more than once, or divorced and did not re-marry. wondering if there's something with an inheritance of a husband's, as 7th-ruler is in the 8th, 8th-ruler in the 2nd.
Several of you also corrected delineated the fact that this nativity showed features that indicated great difficulty conceiving a child or even the death of a child. Stopes did in fact lose her first child in a pregnancy that had gone to full term. As if this was not traumatic enough in itself Stopes became involved in a legal action against the Hospital which she held responsible for malpractice.

Tanit wrote:
Her 8th is very difficult and the 5th ruler is also in the 8th. I have a niece with similar sorts of emphasis and she experienced the death of a child a few days after birth that scarred her very deeply, although she has other healthy children as well
Wade wrote:
wondering if she had children herself. looks like there was significant difficulty there if she had, or perhaps lost a child due to Saturn's retrogradation in the 8th, in opposition to 8th-ruler.
perhaps she married more than once, or divorced and did not re-marry. wondering if there's something with an inheritance of a husband's, as 7th-ruler is in the 8th, 8th-ruler in the 2nd.
A couple of you had a go at delineating Stopes physical appearance and were very accurate:

Wade wrote:
Virgo rising with Mercury in Scorpio -- simple, plain, small features, though dark. Mercury in conjunction with Venus in Scorpio: likely someone who adopted style trends of the time, though they somehow didn't suit her (perhaps she didn't put enough effort into it to avoid looking a bit disheveled -- but if I'm right about even a little of the above, she had bigger fish to fry than hair and dress).
Vasanth wrote:
Agree with dark complexion observation by Wade - both ASC ruler and ASC decan ruler in Scorpio - dark, intense eyes, coarse hair.
I find astrological physiognomy interesting although I haven’t used it an awful lot in practice myself. A lot of the traditional sources seem to go to decan or term rulers of the ASC rather than the more straightforward ASC sign ruler and its placement. I still recall, a presentation by Deborah Houlding where she demonstrated a chart she had cast for a missing girl. I think like Lilly, Deb used the Ptolemaic term ruler to identity her physical appearance in the chart. The chart delineation indicated the girl was already dead and sadly this turned out to be correct. I personally prefer the Egyptian bounds and have used the Egyptian bound ruler of the ASC degree on a few charts to determine physiology. In the cases I have examined it seemed to resonate well with the actual physical description of the native. Anyway, I digress...

Some of you also correctly identified that Stopes had financial woes although I think her highly unsuccessful publicised libel case was probably her major financial set back.

Wade wrote:
Sun and Mars in the 2nd, both debilitated, 2nd-ruler cadent and in fall -- I imagine she had significant financial pressures, or tended to squander whatever money she had. Pisces on 7th cusp with 7th-ruler retrograde, and Moon in Pisces -- perhaps she married more than once, or divorced and did not re-marry. wondering if there's something with an inheritance of a husband's, as 7th-ruler is in the 8th, 8th-ruler in the 2nd.
A very specific comment by Arvind was spookily accurate.
The Aries/Libra thing makes me think science, Saturn in the 8th, metals or ores, coal or oil and Mars brings chemical, or engineering to the mix.
Saturn in the eighth opposing the Sun/Mars conjunction gives a long life and Saturn is trining the ascendant with gives a hearty constitution.
Remarkable. I have noticed looking at previous Mystery charts your answers are always totally accurate. But it’s a shame your delineation comments are always so pithy. As Tom used to say the most valuable part of this exercise is seeing the process involved in how people arrived at their answers. Noone could deny you zeroed in yet again with some highly accurate comments. But I confess I still couldn’t have put together this delineation with the features you mentioned. For example there were vertically no female scientists in this period and Stopes was a pioneer in that respect. So how you managed to narrow down science still mystifies me. Equally, I have a collection of hundreds of charts of scientists. While Aries-Libra does feature a fair amount Capricorn-Cancer seems the most common.

Another comment by Arvind's seeking to identify Stopes specific field was again a bullseye:
Saturn in the 8th, metals or ores, coal or oil and Mars brings chemical, or engineering to the mix
Stopes was both a paleo botanist focusing on ancient extinct plants. In particular she was an International authority on the formation of coal. I suppose once you had exclusively decided she was a scientist and rejected all other possibilities this became easier to arrive at. But its still quite a feat considering all the alternative significations for Saturn you could have used.

Once again please accept my apology for literally disappearing off the forum the way I did over the last few months. I am afraid some things just had to top this forum. Indeed I have been off Facebook and email for the last few months too.

It is self evident there are numerous insightful delineations here. I would suggest these are a great testament for the power of astrology. Still I suppose the sceptics could always argue it only takes 5 minutes of googling and some astrology software to find the identity of a well known mystery chart person like this. It would be interesting to put gifted astrologers like many of the posters here in a hermetically sealed environment to hopefully see if we could replicate such spot on delineations.

Failing that I suppose the best challenge would be to put up chart data not on Astrodatbank or quite so prominent. Stopes chart is hardly obscure and appears in the Clifford data files on Solar Fire. Selecting more obscure individuals with no Wikipedia profile would be another way to go.

A different approach might be to set the challenge of identifying key times in a nativity of less famous individuals although accessing such information is not straightforward.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

18
I agree, I personally would rather people post charts of relatives or friends they know well.Even without the slow planets it was easy for me to find her on astrodatabank.
But great work anyway

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Mark wrote: Arvind wrote:
The Piscean Moon's close trine to Venus and the wider trine to Mercury gives a "my way or the highway" slant to her emotional makeup and relationships/sex.

Your delineation is correct regarding Stopes but I must admit I would never have got that from this configuration myself.
Mark
Mark: I don't have time to walk/talk through this particular delineation right now. Maybe later when time permits. Just because you or others can't connect the dots on this one doesn't mean it "isn't so," but it is there for those who can see.

All my delineations are based on the particular and natural significations of the planets with whole sign house rulerships without the use of the outer planets.

Tanit and I spoke in this thread: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10043 that it would be nice to see more event based work for the mystery chart rather than bio/personality.

All that matters for the mystery chart is that the birth data is accurate. It might be a good idea to avoid people of even minor notoriety to keep the playing field level, especially since you obliquely inferred cheating... but enough said.
Cheers.

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If there are questions of cheating, then I agree that using charts that are unable to be found on the internet is a good idea. I know at least one person already did that recently with a forensic scientist and we still all did very well on it, though, so there goes that theory (in my opinion). I am assuming she was not searchable but I didn't look.
Moonbright's example chart:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10117 I am still kicking myself for not mentioning the possibility of vegetarianism for the scientist and being attractive, because I did think that.

I don't shy away from predicting since I am a horary astrologer and that is all that we do and I have 10 years of more correct than not predictions in the forum.

Don't take offensive, Arvind. I certainly did not assume you cheated.

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Arvind wrote:
As a woman born in the Victorian era, this would help her to stand out in a male dominated society for sure
Just curious, how does one know she is born in the Victorian era!

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Vasanth wrote:
Just curious, how does one know she is born in the Victorian era!
Quite easily really. The planets are chronometers. You can not only work out an era or year but even a day of birth from just a chart if you have an ephemeris or astrological software. You start with the slowest moving planets by sign to get a year (Saturn, Jupiter) to identify a specific year and cross check with Mars. You can get a day from checking the Sun and inner planets. For example, Solar Fire has an animated chart feature that allows you to look at the planetary positions going back in time at high speed.

Of course this is a downside of any mystery chart exercise if you are seriously trying to test astrological skill ( as opposed to having fun!) Anyone with minimal astrological competency could quickly find a date of birth, check this for celebrities on Wikipedia and then look up the chart in Astrodatabank (as this one was).

Let me be clear I am not accusing anyone of cheating here! But the option is always there and can never be conclusively eliminated unless you lock your astrologers into a secure underground facility with no internet or mobile access! The other alternative is to use data from people who are not celebrities and who cannot be googled on Wikipedia and/or Astrodatabank. Using clients can be difficult too though due to the confidentiality and consent issues. I have been thinking of putting up a family member who has agreed to this.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

23
Hi Mark,

I understand the process to lock down the date using the ephemeris or astrology software; but I don't see the point for doing so for delineating a mystery chart.

Vasanth

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Vasanth wrote:
Hi Mark,

I understand the process to lock down the date using the ephemeris or astrology software; but I don't see the point for doing so for delineating a mystery chart.
Ok. But the way you worded your initial question looked like you didn't get any of that. You used the word 'how' not 'why'. Your moving on to a rather different question as I see it. I suspect Arvind will want to avoid going down that particular Rabbit hole with us.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly