Terrorism and the Stars
 A cocktail of planets with aggression, victims and idealism
Bernadette Brady M.A.   
 

The term "terrorism" entered our language in a political manner after the French Revolution of 1789. It was a term largely used to embrace the idea of a government imposing a radical new order on its citizens and it came from the “Reign of Terror” enforced by the new French Republic of that period. On the 5 September, 1793, the French Convention (the governing body at the time), pressured by the people of Paris, institutionalized The Terror, which was the lethal repression of possible enemies of the state. The Terror lasted until the 28 July, 1794, and it is believed that up to forty thousand people were executed in that period.

The Terror - 5 September, 1793 The chart of 1793 contains a solar eclipse, as well as the newly-discovered planet Uranus (discovered in 1781) which forms an opposition to Pluto. With Uranus linked to the common people, The Terror is thus an expression of the war waged by non armies - Everyman's War, the war of the common people. The mundane star parans to this chart paint a grim picture. Neptune is in paran with both Algol, the Head of the Gorgon and Fomalhaut, the great star of idealism. Since the theme of The Terror was to behead anyone who disagreed with the state, it is sinister in its manifestation. As well, the heliacal rising star for Paris was Alphard, the Heart of the Serpent, a star which brings intense emotional upheavals. This may well be a chart for the beginning of  "terror" as a political tool.

The Terror - 5 September, 1793, Paris, no time known

By the late 19^th century, in the intense climate of Tsarist Russia, terrorism morphed into another form:  a non-government group fighting against what was considered to be an unjust regime. This terrorism focused on killing heads of state in an attempt to overthrow the government. By the late 1940s, terrorism had changed again into rebel groups intimidating the local population in order to support rival powers in French and English colonial countries as they moved towards independence.

Another 5 September...
 

However, the début in the modern era of international terrorism was the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 [1] on the 179th anniversary of The Terror.  At 4.30 am (recorded time in accounts of the day) on 5 September, 1972, eight Palestinian terrorists invaded the Munich Olympic Village and killed two members of the Israeli team. Nine other Israelis were held as hostages for the release of two hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israel. All of the hostages, five of their captors, and a West German policeman were killed in a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving terrorists were captured and were later released by Germany following the hijacking of a Lufthansa airline. Israel's response was to launch a series of Israeli air strikes and assassinations of the principal terrorist planners. All of these events served to highlight the Palestinian cause on the world stage. Whilst there are hundreds of definitions of terrorism which are beyond the scope of this newsletter, this event began to define international terrorism as any act on foreign soil whose primary purpose is to instil fear in the other country’s civilian population, rather than acts which are concerned with a potential military victory.
 

In considering the star parans in play for Munich on that fateful day,  the star which was the heliacal rising for Munich and thus ruling that period of time was once again Alphard, just as it was for The Terror in 1793. Mixed with this potent star was Facies (with Uranus), a nebula in the face of Sagittarius associated with aggressive acts. Added to this was El Nath (with Pluto), the tip of one of the horns of Taurus, also associated with aggression and bringing in a new kind of weapon or military activity. In Starlight this particular combination is delineated as: Destruction, or threats in a manner not previously considered. Lastly, Pluto was combined with Fomalhaut, a beautiful star linked with idealism but when mixed with aggressive stars or victim stars, can produce the cocktail of violence, intimidation and extremism.

The Munich Olympic Games Terrorism chart  - 4.30 am 5 September, 1972, Munich Germany data from news reports.

All of this stellar symbolism was focused at the same time in the same place through Uranus and Pluto. These two planets were the major astrological markers for the chart of The Terror but now they have just begun a new cycle, having formed a conjunction only a few years earlier in Virgo (1964-65). This cycle will, of course, run until 2104 when there is another Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Taurus (What this implies about the current state of terrorism amongst us is for further astrological research).  However, since 1972 there have been other acts of international terrorism, many of which do not achieve their full effect. Some unfortunately do and the following is an short list of what are considered to be some of the worst or most notable acts of international terrorism. It is interesting to look at their star and planet parans, as well as their in relationship to the Munich the The Terror chart.

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30 April 1980  - At 11.30 am, six Islamic terrorists seized the Iranian embassy in London. They announced that they would kill a hostage every half hour, and killed two. The British anti-terrorist department, the SAS, raided the embassy and killed five of the six terrorists. The remainder of the hostages were released unharmed.
 

30 April, 1980 - Iranian Embassy London
	Aspects to Munich Chart - The transiting Saturn-Neptune square was opposing and squaring the Saturn of the Munich chart. The Terror Chart - Transiting Node on the Uranus - Pluto opposition.
	Star parans for the latitude of London -   Alphard was in paran with Neptune, while Zosma, the great victim star in the back of Leo the Lion, governed this whole period as the Heliacal Setting star.

21 December, 1988. At 19.02 local time a bomb onboard 757 airliner Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing two hundred and seventy people (two hundred and fifty nine aboard and eleven town residents). US State Department said that intelligence linked the crime to both the government of Libya and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command.

21 December 1988 - Lockerbie, Scotland
	Aspects to Munich Chart – Transiting Uranus-Saturn-Neptune conjunction (orb of 8 degrees) was squaring Pluto of the Munich chart. The Terror Chart - transiting Pluto was opposing Saturn.
	Star parans for the latitude of Lockerbie -  Once again Alphard was in paran with Uranus, Zosma was also present with Pluto and to add to the intensity, Menkar, the star linked with victimisation through simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time was in paran with Neptune. Added to this, Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion, was the heliacal rising star, while Alcyone, the great judgmental and fateful star of the Pleiades, was the heliacal setting star.

 26 February, 1993. A car bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists in the underground parking garage below the World Trade Centre in New York. Six people were killed and over one thousand people were injured.

11 September, 2001 – 9/11. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York City, one plane into each tower. The hijackers crashed a third airline into the Pentagon. In addition to the nineteen hijackers, two thousand nine hundred and seventy four people died; another twenty-four are missing and presumed dead.
 

12 October, 2002 – The Bali Bombings.  At 11.05 pm in a crowded night club, a suicide bomber  detonated a bomb in his backpack. Fifteen seconds later, a second and much more powerful car bomb  was detonated by another suicide bomber outside the club. The final death toll was two hundred and two people, comprising mainly western tourists and holiday-makers. A week after the blasts the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera put to air an audio-cassette purportedly carrying a recorded voice message from Osama Bin Laden saying that the Bali bombings were in direct retaliation for support of the United States' war on terror and Australia's role in the liberation of East Timor.

7 July, 2005 –  The London bombings were a series of terrorist bomb blasts that hit London's public transport system during the morning rush hour. At 8:50 a.m., three bombs exploded within fifty seconds of each other on three London Underground trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a bus nearly an hour later at 9:47 a.m. in Tavistock Square. The bombings killed fifty-two commuters and the four suicide bombers and injured seven hundred people. 

One can start to build a signature concerning the astrology of international terrorism which is consist of a strongly-brewed cocktail of transiting planetary combinations or, in the case of the London bombings, a unique and unusual Mars situation. This planetary combination then needs to have a relationship with the Munich 1972 chart, and/or the chart for The Terror, while keeping a watchful eye on the Uranus-Pluto cycle, as it appears to have acted as a trigger in someway (Everyman's War). Once this is achieved, then the terrorist event could occur at any location on the planet where this is mixed with the right stars. Certain cities or locations will thus add to this mix the ingredients of idealism, aggression and victimisation through their current star parans. 

The graph below is a summary of the stars involved in the acts of terrorism in this article. Each star is a coloured block and you can see from the graph that Alphard (dark blue) is the foundation star of most of the events, whereas a star like Facies (coloured green) has only be present in the Munich chart. The Terror stars are not included as they are more of a "seed" event.

One final point to remember is that life is not a machine and thus our astrology, visual or otherwise, is not about clockwork precision but rather about informing us of the quality of a period of time. Thus in my experience, we can have all of the above combinations in place and not experience a successful terrorist attack. In other words, the time and place may be “charged” for such events but thankfully for other reasons the event does not manifest. What the stars add about such events is to show us "where" on the globe we will find these difficult planetary combinations blended with the colours of suffering. 

Note: This discussion on the Uranus-Pluto cycle, terrorism and other transits to The Terror chart as well as the Munich chart will be continued on the Visual Astrology Blog.

Sources:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre
Starlight Software (2002) Barnswood and Brady:Zyntara Publications