Part 3 – Spica and the Tree of Life: Venus and the Moonchild

• Part 1 – Spica and the Tree of Life: The Moon and Abdul Alhazred
• Part 2 – Spica and the Tree of Life: Mercury and the Albatross
• Part 3 – Spica and the Tree of Life: Venus and the Moonchild

In the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones’s archrival René Belloq pleads with Jones to try and understand his obsession with the lost Ark of the Covenant: For Belloq, the desire to claim the vessel that contained the Ten Commandments was more than a mere archaeological wonder. Belloq seethes, “It’s a transmitter! A radio for speaking to God!” Here indeed was a deep and unyielding truth: as we entered a truly technological age, we would be impelled to look back at ancient forms of magic and occult practice and imbue them with this same kind of technological purpose.ⁱ

John Rhys-Davis, who played the Egyptian named Sallah in Raiders, had a line in the film: “They call him Belloch,” in reference to Belloq. Indiana Jones laughs and corrects him: “Belloq. Belloq.” There’s a Reddit on this topic created eight years ago: “Why is Paul Freeman’s character in Raiders of the Lost Ark spelled ‘Belloq’?” The majority of the replies speculate that this faux pas had to do with a miscommunication between Arabic and French.

In a Reddit response last year, I delivered a different possibility: “The real reason must have to do with the villain in Aleister Crowley’s novel, ‘Moonchild.’ Balloch is a member of the Black Lodge. Just a hunch here, but a fitting influence for Lucas’ Belloq, not only via Sallah’s enunciation of the surname, but by the quality of Balloch’s character in ‘Moonchild.’”ⁱⁱ

When I was a child in the 80s, my grandparents took me to Disney World. The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular was my most anticipated event. And, when I attempted to look for my favorite adventurer’s Stetson in the gift shop to take home after the show as a keepsake, and they were sold out, I instead found Belloq’s fedora the only available option; however, I liked it just as much, and I wore it around as I explored the forest and hills behind my house in rural New Hampshire.

In reflection, could George Lucas have read Moonchild and based the Raiders villain on Belloch from the novel? Something deeper behind the villain has stuck with me throughout the years, something akin to alchemical.

Crowley’s 1917 novel was the inspiration for “Moonchild,” the Iron Maiden song written by frontman Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith. As described in the previous article—Iron Maiden, Dickinson, and the influence of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, author Samuel Taylor Coleridge—Dickinson shares the same natal astrological phenomenon as did Aleister Crowley and Coleridge: all three were born with a planet conjunct the fixed star Spica. In Crowley’s case, he was born with the Sun and Venus conjunct Spica.

What exactly is a “moonchild”? The passage below from the novel describes the preparation of the occult ritual:

Upon the evening of Monday, after the adoration of the setting sun, Sister Clara called Lisa aside, and led her to this garden. There she and the hand-maidens unclothed her, and washed her from head to foot in the waters of the sacred spring. Then she put upon her a solemn oath that she would follow out the rules of the ritual, not speaking to any man except her chosen, not leaving the protection of the circle, not communicating with the outer and uninitiated world; but, on the other hand, devoting herself wholly to the invocation of the Moon. Then she clothed her in a specially prepared and consecrated garments. It was not of the same pattern as those of the Order; it was a loose vestment of pale blue covered with silver tissue; and the secret sigils of the moon were woven cunningly upon its hem. It was frail, but of great volume; and the effect was that the wearer seemed to be wrapped in a mist of moonlight. In a languid and mysterious chant Sister Clara raised her voice, and her acolytes kept accord on their mandolines; it was an incantation of fervour and of madness, the madness of things chaste, remote, and inscrutable. At the conclusion she took Lisa by the hand, and gave her a new name, a mystic name, engraved upon a moonstone, set in a silver ring which she put upon her finger. This name was Iliel. It had been chosen on account of its sympathy of number to the moon; for the name is Hebrew, in which the language its characters have the value of 81, the square of 9, the sacred number of the moon. But other considerations helped to determine the choice of this name. The letter L in Hebrew refers to Libra, the sign under which she had been born; and it was surrounded with two letters, I, to indicate her envelopment by the force of creation and chastity which the wise men of old hid in that hieroglyph. The final “EL” signified the divinity of her new being; for this is the Hebrew word for God, and is commonly attached by the sages to divers roots, to imply that these ideas have been manifested in individuals of angelic nature.ⁱⁱⁱ

“Moonchild” was the first track on the April 11^th, 1988 Iron Maiden album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Like the earlier Powerslave album that featured “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the occult influence in Iron Maiden has remained. This energy is seen in their live shows. Dickinson: “For ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, we turned the same stage set into an [sic] old galleon. This was old-school painted backdrops, trompe-l’oeil effects and props. It was proper theatre rather than insubstantial gimmicks. It was theatre of the mind.”^iv

Blending theater and the occult is not an uncommon practice for creatives. Peter Bebergal, in his Strange Frequencies, describes an occurrence in the play just mentioned:

During a recent performance of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest at the American Repertory Theater (ART) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, produced and directed by Raymond Teller (of Penn & Teller), I found myself looking straight into the heart of magic. The enchanter Prospero, marooned on an island, is attempting to undo the dissolution of this family and restore his and his daughter Miranda’s place by using all the arcane forces at his disposal, including the trickster spirit Ariel, indebted to the magician who released him from imprisonment in a tree. Ariel himself is a master sorcerer, capable of feats of wonder, and is the source of most of the magic that occurs in the play…Ariel, played by the actor and magician Nate Dendy, employs ‘real’ magic, completely erasing the line between magic as performance and the occult magic of Prospero. Ariel’s magic is supernatural, expressed onstage using sleight of hand techniques and technology that, as Nate explained to me over a video call, was not any more advanced than was available to the Elizabethan-era production when the play was first staged…The use of real stage magic in The Tempest also calls to mind the earliest ideas of how theater should function. The Greek plays involving Dionysus were meat to be initiatory. Edith Hall, a classicist and historian at King’s College London, explains that just as the characters are seen to be in thrall to the god’s madness—akin to a state of altered consciousness—the audience is asked to imagine that experience for themselves…As Nate explained it to me, this staging of The Tempest echoes this original idea of theater. The illusion of magic is necessary for the drama to be real for the audience: ‘Stage magic is being used as a storytelling device to bring you closer to what the characters are thinking and feeling and experiencing.^v

Dickinson’s 2024 interview with journalist, author, and William Blake researcher John Higgs, published on the UK independent long-form hub, The Quietus, digs deeper: “An Iron Maiden show is a magical ritual…I look at what I’m doing—the way I behave, my placement on the stage at a certain point in the set—as almost shamanic. What you are doing is playing with the audience’s energy, raising it, lowering it, reflecting it back.”^vi Dickinson’s description is important because, like Crowley and many aficionados of hermeticism, Dickinson was greatly influenced by William Blake. In his autobiography, Dickinson also reflects on Blake during his own creation of film and solo albums:

Being a pilot was one thing, but writing and producing a movie was more problematical. Julian Doyle and I had been spending some quality drinking time together. After nearly 10 years of frustration, we decided to have a crack at raising some money and doing the Crowley film ourselves, which meant low budget no frills…The Chemical Wedding, I thought, needed a theme as epic as some of the riffs from the frets of Roy Z and Adrian Smith’s guitars. Enter the artwork of William Blake. I started to rad the excellent biography of Blake by Peter Ackroyd. I think it is one of the best of his books, the other being London: The Biography. I got the feeling that Ackroyd was almost channeling the spirit of Blake to rise from the pages and speak directly to the reader. I certainly went to bed with the strangest dreams, and I started to wonder if I had in some way fallen under the spell of the difficult, curmudgeonly but otherworldly Blake. Now was the time to hurl myself into the cauldron of creation that was The Chemical Wedding. Most of the album was heavily influenced by Blake—not just in a literal sense, but in a spiritual one. Blake was almost certainly an alchemist or member of a group relating to the occult or magical philosophy. At the time, I was struck by his two characters “Los” and “Urizen.” Los (or Sol backwards) was creative and doomed forever to have his head buried in a bucket of fire, symbolizing the torture of the endlessly creative soul. Urizen was the cold repository of logic, chained to a rock, dismal and brooding. To me they seemed like characters in Blake’s subconscious, acting out the drama in his soul, expressed as art and poetry. I had some inkling of what it felt like to love the creativity but be held back by the grim realities of the commercial and the fear of change. I could relate to Blake.^vii

Venus is important in this article because, like Crowley’s Sun, Venus was conjunct Spica in his birth chart, as well as representing the 7^th sephiroth of the Tree of Life, Netzach—in the next article, I will delve into the 6^th sephiroth, Tiphareth, representing the Sun. In fact, Venus is currently conjunct with Spica as I submit this article. The most famous example of a prevalence of “seven” is most assuredly Revelation 8:1-13 from the Bible:

When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for a half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashed of lightning and an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blook, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels.^viii

In a similar vein, we also see this dance of sevens in Yazidi theology—The Seven Mysteries reveal an interesting insight:

In the heart of Yazidi theology lies the Heft Sirr, or the Seven Mysteries, which are the seven holy beings or angels. These beings are paramount to the Yazidi faith as they are seen as the executors of the divine will and the sustainers of the universe.

1. Tawûsê Melek (Melek Taus): The primary angel, Melek Taus or the Peacock Angel, is considered the leader of the archangels and the chief conduit of divine will. The Peacock Angel is associated with the planet Venus. In Yazidi scripture, Melek Taus is entrusted with authority over the world after he refuses to bow to Adam, thereby passing a divine test. This narrative diverges significantly from the Judeo-Christian and Islamic tales of a rebellious or fallen angel. As a result, outsiders often equate him with the Islamic Iblis or the Christian Satan.
2. Şêx Hasan: Known for his wisdom, Şêx Hasan is seen as the illuminator of truth and the angel of insight, guiding the faithful in understanding the deeper layers of their faith.
3. Şêx Shams: The angel Şêx Shams is associated with the sun and is often invoked for guidance and enlightenment. He brings clarity and is considered a source of knowledge.
4. Abû Bakir: Abû Bakir is seen as the angel of productivity and fertility. He is often called upon to ensure the prosperity of the Yazidi people and the fertility of the earth.
5. Şêx Obaid: The guardian of Yazidi faith, Şêx Obaid is the angel responsible for protecting the community from external threats and maintaining the sanctity of their religious practices.
6. Şêx Musafir: As the name suggests, Şêx Musafir is the patron of travellers and pilgrims, safeguarding those who venture on spiritual journeys or who seek truth across the lands.
7. Şêx Fakhradin: The final holy being, Şêx Fakhradin, plays a role in the administration of divine justice. He is called upon in matters of law and ethics within the Yazidi community.^ix

Venus has been considered the “morning” and “evening” star in history, as have Jesus and Satan. Historically, Venus is also given the archetypal meaning of love and harmony. Below is the archetype of Venus according to Richard Tarnas:

Venus: the principle of desire, love, beauty, value; the impulse and capacity to attract and be attracted, to love and be loved, to seek and create beauty and harmony, to engage in social and romantic relations, sensuous pleasure, artistic and aesthetic experience; the principle of Eros and the Beautiful; Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.^x

While it is understood that Venus’ orbit, direct and retrograde, can be observed as a harmonic dance around the Sun, Crowley is understood to have spent much of his life-effort defining and interpreting the nature of love and will. Seven is a recurring number in Crowley’s novel; Iron Maiden emphasized seven’s importance as it is repeated seven times in the first verse of “Moonchild”:

Seven deadly sins

Seven ways to win

Seven holy paths to hell

And your trip begins

Seven downward slopes

Seven bloodied hopes

Seven are your burning fires

Seven, your desires…

I am he, the bornless one

The fallen angel watching you

Babalon, the scarlet whore

I’ll infiltrate your gratitude

Don’t you dare to save your son

Kill him now and save the young ones

Be the mother of a birth-strangled babe

Be the devil’s own, Lucifer’s my name

Moonchild, hear the mandrake scream

Moonchild, open the seventh seal

I count the heads of those unborn

The accursed ones, I’ll find them all

And if you die by your own hand

As a suicide, you shall be damned

And if you try to save your soul

I will torment you; you shall not grow old

With every second and passing breath

You’ll be so alone; your soul will bleed to death

Moonchild, hear the mandrake scream

Moonchild, open the seventh seal

Moonchild, you’ll be mine soon, child

Moonchild, take my hand tonight

The twins, they are exhausted

Seven is this night

Gemini is rising

As the red lips kiss to bite

Seven angels, seven demons

Battle for his soul

When Gabriel lies sleeping

This child was born to die

One more dies, and one more lives

One baby cries, one mother grieves

For all the sins you will commit

You’ll beg forgiveness, and none I’ll give

A web of fear shall be your coat

To clothe you in the night

A lucky escape for you, young man

But I’ll see you damned in endless night

Moonchild, hear the mandrake scream

Moonchild, open the seventh seal

Moonchild, you’ll be mine soon, child

Moonchild, take my hand tonight^xi

The novel is essentially about a battle between good magicians versus evil magicians over the birth of a magical child. So influential was this novel that occultist and rocket-fuel scientist Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard performed their own moonchild rituals and ceremonies for this very goal of producing one after reading the novel.

Orson Scott Card’s Seventh Son—the novel that influenced the Iron Maiden album title—was the first book in a series of six stories about the protagonist Alvin Miller, who was a boy with extraordinary powers. He was born the seventh son of a seventh son, and his lifelong duty as a “Maker” pits him against his supernatural nemesis, the “Unmaker.” Card’s Alvin was inspired by Mormonism and Church of Jesus Christ for Latter-day Saints (LDS) visionary, Joseph Smith, Jr. In fact, Joseph Smith, Jr., as well as Card, had natal Spica placements (I dedicate a chapter in my book on Smith). Alvin was the name of Smith’s eldest brother. While the Unmaker represents the force of entropy, Alvin represents the physical force of architecture and engineering. Alvin creates physical things; the Unmaker destroys them. Like Crowley, Dickinson, and Higgs, Card was also inspired by William Blake. In fact, Card’s character, Taleswapper, is essentially William Blake in writ.

This recurring relationship of individuals with planets conjoined Spica and occult literature continues to align with the theme I continue in my articles: natal Spica placements correspond with the artistic and literary “escapist imagination.” Below are some passages from Moonchild that corresponded to the spirit of a Blakean and “escapist imagination” theme:

Doubt and jealousy, those other handmaidens of love, are also the children of imagination. But people wrongly use the word “imagination” to mean abstraction of ideas from concrete facts. And this is the reverse of the truth. Imagination makes ideas visible, clothe Being in form. It is, in short, very much like the “faith” of which Paul speaks. When true imagination makes true images of the Unseen, we have true love, and all true gods; when false imagination makes false images—then come the idols, Moloch, Jahveh, Jaganath, and their kindred, attended by all shapes of vice, of crime, of misery.^xii

Demons and elementals and intelligences were only fractions of true Entities, according to the theory; they were illusions, things merely three-dimensional, with no core of substance in themselves. In yet another figure, they were adjectives, and not nouns. But a human soul is a complete reality. “Every man and every woman is a star.”^xiii

However, Cyril’s main hope was that any passing souls would be reasonable, and not try to force themselves into uncongenial company, or plant themselves in unsuitable soil. He had always held that incarnation was balked when the soul discovered that the heredity and environment of the embryo it had chosen were too hostile to allow the desired manifestation; the soul would then withdraw, with the physical result of miscarriage, still-birth, or, where the embryo, deserted by the human soul, becomes open to the obsession of some other being, such as a Vampire or what the Bible calls a “dumb spirit,” the production of monsters or idiots.^xiv

You will be amazed at the possibilities of your own mind, its fertility of cunning, its fatally false logic, its power of binding you to facts that ought to be as clear as daylight—yes, even to the things before your very eyes. It will seek to bewilder you, to make you lose your mental balance—every trick is possible. And you will be so beaten and so blind that you have only one safeguard [sic]; which is, to adhere desperately to the literal terms of your oath.^xv

The most exquisite deceit of the devil is to lure you from the plain meaning of words.^xvi

For the few years that I have been studying astrology and finding patterns with Spica natives, creativity, true crime, and the occult, I have also found that there is an astrological trend that has been gaining interest in certain occult and psychological communities: Human Design.

A free beginner’s guide to Human Design is available at https://www.thehumandesignacademy.com/blog/what-is-human-design, as well as an origin story of the creator of Human Design, Ra Uru Hu: https://www.jovianarchive.human_design/rauruhu.

What is most interesting to note is that Crowley and Ra Uru Hu developed their literature based on the channeling of a non-human intelligence that followers of both still believe was real. The area of the tropical zodiac where Spica exists is Hexagram 32 in Human Design: The Gate of Continuity. Here, Ra Uru Hu defines this gate (planetary placement conjunct Spica) as:

The instinctive awareness that continuity within the community can only be achieved through making changes. Gate 32 represents the awareness of survival through continuity within the community. It is the instinct for the true value of someone or something. On the one hand, survival at a material level requires the community to adapt and transform while, on the other hand, it preserves what has been established. It means being aware of what needs to be changed in order to ensure continuity. It is the archetype of the conservative CFO, who acts with caution, as careful practice will secure long-term success and prevent material failure. The gate’s potential is Continuity through Change, also for the benefit of the community.^xvii

Keywords for Gate 32 are “apprenticeship; the instinct and awareness to know what to remember and what change is necessary to achieve continuity.”^xviii The harmonic gate that forms a channel to Gate 32 is Gate 54: Ambition, with keywords “the marrying maiden; fluid balance; the drive to expand memory.”^xix

Ambitious interaction that utilizes social and mystic connections and is willing to take up a subordinate role to them. Gate 54 is the driving factor behind a person’s ambitious rise within the community. It is the need to be successful on the material plane and move up the social ladder. It is the pressure to earn money, make profitable deals and, in doing so, attract the attention of higher-ranking people and enlist their support for one’s transformation—on a mundane as well as mystical level. It is always about the right connections to people in positions of power. It is the archetype of the ambitious concubine who eventually becomes the empress. The gate’s potential is Ambition.^xx

A planet at Gate 32 and Gate 54 forms the Success channel:

This specialization provides me with a strong drive for lasting success. I am capable of turning hard work into material success. In doing so I know how to carefully balance vitality and self-restraint in order to climb the social ladder. I have an intuitive gift to assess costs and benefits and adjust the efforts made to the possible result. If I manage to recognize my true position within the community, develop a healthy sense of self-esteem and find the right contacts and connections, I can avoid becoming a workaholic. In terms of health I benefit from regular physical exercise.^xxi

How bizarre was it that Crowley’s Thoth tarot card for Venus—The Empress—was used here by Ra Uru Hu? There are associations with the Beast of Revelations—Crowley was given this label by his own mother and reinforced the nomenclature his entire life—being ridden by the Great Mother Babalon: the scarlet whore is her agent in the physical. Ra Uru Hu’s description of Gate 32 also corresponds with mystic Ellias Lonsdale’s mystical description of the degree where Spica exists in the zodiac (repetitive keyword, “continuity”):

A tremendous boulder hovering over the ocean. Collective cycles are everything here. You are caught between worlds, part of many, belonging to none. Changes are imminent. The air is buzzing with future currents. No rest, no quiet, no continuity. You verge on astounding things; held poised at the edge. You feel propelled by destiny to obsess upon where we all are now, where we came from, and especially, where we are going. Gathering impressions toward the harvest, staying tuned for further developments. And knowing it’s gonna come any moment now, “I can feel it rising up.”^xxii

As discussed in earlier articles, Lonsdale is known for channeling Marc Edmund Jones’ Sabian symbols, along with many others like Dane Rudyar and John Sandbach. Of course, as Alan Robert Krakower—Ra Uru Hu—originally worked in the business world of publishing, marketing, and advertising, it cannot be ignored the influence of this background in the language of his literature. Yet, by squinting a little, the mystical features in his descriptions of the Human Design bodygraph are revealed.

While the tarot card, the 4 of Swords, is the later area of Libra in the zodiacal ecliptic where Spica exists—the third face of Libra—based on Ra Uru Hu’s and Lonsdale’s mystical interpretations, if there was a specific tarot card to best represent the fixed star Spica’s inherent essence, my bets would be on Trump XX: The Aeon, which is in fact a depiction of Revelation 8. Knowing this, could Spica be the star referred to as “Wormwood” or perhaps Lonsdale’s “tremendous boulder”? Revelation 8 gives the impression of an ancient estimation of a meteorite or comet’s aerial burst, again, themes of the Younger Dryas Extinction Event correspond to this passage.

“Ra Uru Hu” also sounds eerily close to the Egyptian “composite deity” Crowley describes in his The Book of the Law (Heru-ra-ha is a composite of Hoor-pa-kraat and Ra-hoor-khuit). Crowley explains the symbolism of Trump XX in The Thoth Tarot:

The old card was called The Angel: or, The Last Judgement. It represented an Angel or Messenger blowing a trumpet, attached to which was a flag, bearing the symbol of the Aeon of Osiris. Below him the graves were opening, the dead rising up. There were three of them. The central one had his hands raised with right angles at the elbows and shoulders, so as to form the letter Shin, which refers to Fire. The card therefore represented the destruction of the world by Fire. This was accomplished in the year of the vulgar era 1904, when the fiery god Horus took the place of the airy god Osiris in the East as Hierophant. At the beginning, then, of this new Aeon, it is fit to exhibit the message of that angel who brought the news of the new Aeon to earth. The new card is thus of necessity an adaptation of the Stélé of Revealing. Around the top of the card is the body of Nuith, the star goddess, who is the category of unlimited possibility; her mate is Hadit, the ubiquitous point-of-view, the only philosophically tenable conception of Reality. He is represented by a globe of fire, representing eternal energy; winged, to show his power of Going. As a result of the marriage of these two, the child Horus is born. He is, however, known under his special name, Heru-ra-ha. A double god; his extraverted form is Ra-hoor-khuit; and his passive or introverted form Hoor-pa-kraat. He is also solar in character, and is therefore shown coming form in golden light. The whole of this symbolism is thoroughly explained in the Book of the Law. It should, by the way, be noted that the name Heru is identical with Hru, who is the great Angel set over the tarot. This new Tarot may therefore be regarded as a series of illustrations to the Book of the Law; the doctrine of that Book is everywhere implicit. At the bottom of the card we see the letter Shin itself in a form suggestive of a flower; the three Yods are occupied by three human figures arising to partake in the Essence of the new Aeon. Behind this letter is a symbolic representation of the Sign of Libra; this is the forth-shadowing of the Aeon which is to follow this present one, presumably in about 2,000 years—“the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis shall arise and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place.” The present Aeon is too young to give a more definite representation of this future event. But in this connection attention must be drawn to the figure of Ra-hoor-khuit: “I am the Lord of the Double Wand of Power; the want of the Force of Coph Nia; by my left hand is empty, for I have crushed a [sic] Universe; and [sic] nought remains.” There are many other details with regard to the Lord of the Aeon which should be studied in the Book of the Law. ^xxiii

As I was researching this article, reading John Higgs’ William Blake vs. the World, I came across my own small “coincidence” on the second day of writing this article. For some insight on the random mornings when I am writing, I sometimes draw-up three tarot cards and make my own impressions. This morning, I drew, in order: Trump XI: Lust, 3 of Disks, and 4 of Cups. Lust is the card for Leo; 3 of Disks is the second face of Capricorn; and 4 of Cups is the third face of Cancer.

The Lust card is literally the scene of the scarlet woman riding the Beast of Revelations.

Aleister Crowley rectified his own birth chart. Originally, he was a Cancer ascendant; however, for his own reasons, he felt Leo rising was more accurate; reversely, the mystic Edgar Cayce was born a Leo ascendant but rectified his birth time to a Cancer rising.

It is perpetually interesting how Spica findings demonstrate patterns and individuals that share the patterns show similarities in character. Crowley had his natal Mars a few degrees away from the 3 of Disks. William Blake was also right in between both: the last degree of Cancer was his rising sign, in the 4 of Cups. Bruce Dickinson’s birth time is unknown, but I believe I did my due justice to rectify it. He has his Sun in Leo and Venus on the cusp of the third face of Cancer.

As for Bruce Dickinson, in my opinion, he is a mid-Libra rising, which would mean that he was born around 11:30am. This is interesting given his interest in all things alchemical—a lens constructing and deconstructing his world through observing it. That would make the ruler of his ascendant, Venus, which was conjunct with the midheaven in the 10^th house of career—this would also be appropriate since truly his sense of self is uplifted to the beneficial place of public rulership (i.e., Venus-The Empress). This would also have given him an exalted Moon conjoined Mars in detriment, conjunct by degree in the 8^th house of the occult. This is the very archetype of what the moonchild represents: the magical offspring that both good and evil aim to solicit.