On a visit to the impressive Titanic Museum in Belfast, I was able to get the precise moment of the launch of Titanic: 12:13. Though the launch was planned for 12:15, the manual removal of wooden blocks on the slipway made the exact timing of the vessel's dignified descent into the sea uncertain. This precarious process cost the life of one worker, unbeknown to the crowds that gathered above on Queen Elizabeth Island in Belfast to witness the launch. Was this tragedy was an omen of events to come?
Did a Super Moon raise the risk of collision?
It was a spectacular clear starlit moonless night in the Atlantic when RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg at 11:40pm AST on 14th April 1912 and then slowly descended to the bottom of the ocean.
The seeds of this catastrophe may have been sown by an exceptional astronomical event that occurred some three months earlier. On 3rd of January 1912, the Earth was at perihelion (closest point to the Sun). The next day on 4th January 1912, the full moon (Capricorn/Cancer) coincided closely (within 6 minutes) with the Moon's perigee (closest point to the Earth for 1,400 years) resulting in a "Super Moon" - a term coined by astrologer, Richard Nolle.
Naturally the competing gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun resulted in exceptional spring tides. In addition to the Super Moon (4 Jan 1912), strong tides also occurred at the previous Full Moon (6 December 1911) and the subsequent Full Moon (2 Feb 1912). Astronomers at Texas State University have presented a case that these exceptional high tides enabled a number of icebergs that were previously stranded on the shore or grounded in shallow coastal waters off Labrador and Newfoundland, Canada to refloat. These liberated icebergs then drifted into the ocean currents. Once they entered the shipping lanes the icebergs became a menace to transatlantic vessels. (Olson 2012)
Was the sinking of the Titanic predictable?
The occurence of the Super Moon (on the Capricorn/Cancer axis) gives a solution with a mechanism - gravity of celestial bodies and ice being lighter than water. But this is just one factor. There were many other ships crossing the Atlantic in the three months following the super moon and even on the night of the collision. Time is a less understood mechanism that has a quality that interacts with celestial positions.
So, could an astrologer such as myself, have predicted such a tragic end to this huge liner from knowing only the launch time and date? I would say no, but I can say that no astrologer would have elected this as a launch date. This is not just writing with the benefit of hindsight, the chart is very stressful. I have listed four themes that were likely to manifest in a stressful way.
A Titanic Snow Globe - an ominous souvenir from the Titanic Museum gift shop.
RMS Titanic leaving Southampton on her fatal maiden transatlantic voyage. 10th April 1912
Robert Currey, D.F.Astrol.S. Cert.A*C*G Int. is a British astrologer, writer, lecturer, software designer and programmer and retailer. He specialises in Astro*Carto*Graphy. He founded Equinox in 1981.
Four Major Astrological Challenges of the Titanic Launch Chart
The Venus, Moon, Neptune conjunction [
☽ ♀ ♆ ☌
] represents the fantastic opulence of the luxurious liner occupied by the first class passengers. This stellium is opposed by Uranus in Capricorn [
☍♅♑
] representing the class differences. This particular Neptune/Uranus line-up on this axis signifies the shocking negligence and false economy (the insufficient lifeboats). This opposition heralded the great social changes ahead with enfranchisement of women, the class levelling of the Great War and the Russian Revolution.
The Moon, Venus and Neptune [
☽ ♀ ♆ ☌ ♋
] could be seen to represent the salvation of many of the women and children on board who were first onto the lifeboats.
Neptune [
♆ ♋
]represents the force of the sea and Uranus, [
♅♑
] promethean technology that dared to claim the creation of an unsinkable ship. Neptune was the Roman version of Poseidon who was an Olympian who had superseded Oceanus. Now, Oceanus, Uranus and Prometheus were all Titans - part of the earliest known Greek pantheon. These Titanic deities were overthrown by the 12 Olympians gods. Now the owners of the Titanic, the White Star Line created their Olympic-class ocean liner. All vessels ended in 'ic' - such as Olympic and Britannic. Was it hubris to invoke the name Titanic synonymous with the defeated gods and include it within the Olympic class?
In retrospect, Jupiter in Scorpio [
♃♏
]could symbolise an iceberg. Scorpio represents fixed water = ice and Jupiter represents a large object and being in Scorpio - mostly submerged. Now this is opposite Saturn and Mercury [
♄ ☌☿
] that represents the scheduled journey and route that was based on misinformation.
Mars and Pluto square [
♂ □ ♇
]is symbolic of reckless persistence in the face of grave danger. The Titanic failed to slow down, even after having received several wireless messages warning of ice ahead.
Mars in Pisces (bravery, fool-hardiness and risk at sea) square to Pluto in Gemini (the commercial objectives of the journey). [
♂ ♓ □ ♇ ♊
]
Sun Gemini square Chiron in Pisces in 6th house. [
☉♊ □ Chiron ♓ 6th
] Again the possibility that the prestigious and publicised maiden voyage (Sun Gemini at the MC) could be thwarted by the risk of drowning in the ocean (Chiron in Pisces).
^ April 14 1912 was a moonless night. The Moon was in its last quarter in Pisces. At the time of the collision (23:40) it was exactly 3 days (36 hours) before an Annular - Total Eclipse on 17th April 1912 in Aries (square Neptune). The lack of moonlight also contributed to the sinking:- "At night lookouts normally watched for waves breaking around the exposed portion of an iceberg; the white surf made a berg easier to spot. But on this night there was virtually no swell or wind; little surf would be generated around any icebergs that might be in the vicinity. And there was no Moon. Moonlight would do nothing for haze, but it might have made what foam there was, or even the berg itself, easier to see. Whether the Moon would have made the crucial difference in averting disaster is impossible to say" NASA scientists, David Rubincam and David Rowlands (1993) The Night the Titanic Went Down Sky & Telescope
^ The collision occurred at 49°W56 on 14 April 1912 at 23:40 ship's time (AST) and the ship took 2 hours 20 minutes to sink. The problem is working out ship's time. Based on knowledge of the wreckage and the route, the most recent and reliable source suggests 2 hours 58 minutes behind GMT resulting in a collision time of 02:38 GMT on 15th and the final sinking at 04:58. (Both the UK and US inquiries into the disaster put the time of collision later: 03:07 GMT and 02:50 GMT respectively). But whichever time is used, the Moon was in late Pisces from collision to submergence and Mars was conjunct Pluto. For more details about the timetable of events read the section headed "An Issue of Time" Olympic and Titanic : Maiden Voyage Mysteries by Sam Halpern and Mark Chirnside (2007) Journal of the Titanic International Society. Voyage (#59)
^ Olson, Donald W.; Doescher, Russell L. & Sinnott, Roger W. (2012)
Did the Moon sink the Titanic?Exceptionally
strong tides in early 1912 may have brought the iceberg into the doomed ship’s path. Sky & Telescope April, 2012
^ Forgive the tautology - taken from the film A Few Good Men (1992)
Lieutenant Kaffee (Tom Cruise) questions Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) on the stand. Kaffee:"Grave danger?", Jessep:"Is there another kind?"
