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Post-2016 Election Analysis and Reflections

Post-2016 Election Analysis and Reflections

In episode 93 of the podcast I talk about the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, and reflect on what happened with my prediction.

Below you will find the show notes, followed by links to download or stream the recording of our discussion.

Giveaway Prizes for October/November

On the next episode we will be giving away a pass to the upcoming NCGR astrology conference that is set to take place in Baltimore in February, as well as a copy of the astrology software program Delphic Oracle.

For more information about the giveaway and how to enter for a chance to win see the description page for the October giveaway.

Outline

I covered too much ground to write up a full outline here, as it turned into a nearly three and a half hour discussion. Generally, for the first hour or so I talk about issues related to the birth times of both candidates, and the potential that I may have been using the wrong chart for both Clinton and Trump.

For the second hour or so I talk about where I may have gone wrong with the specific techniques that I used, and the dilemma I ran into that required a sort of judgement call on my part.

In the third hour I talk about some miscellaneous observations related to the outcome of the election and the reactions in the astrological community.

Links to Pages Mentioned

Here are some links to other pages mentioned in the episode:

Transcript

A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 93 transcript

Listen to This Episode

You can either play this episode of the podcast directly from the website or download it as an MP3 to your computer by using the buttons below:

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15 comments
  • Regarding Trump’s birth time, the 10:54 AM is at best an approximation within a few minutes. Having worked in hospitals for many years, I know from experience that the clocks years ago (Trump was born in the 1940s) were often not precisely on time as they can be today with the ability to synchronize electronically with the official time on an atomic clock. In addition, the focus of the medical team is on a safe delivery. The time noted in the chart is often slightly after the fact, when it is clear that there is no medical emergency. Thus, most birth times are probably somewhat after the fact by a minute or two. If the hospital clocks were accurate, Trump could easily have been born a minute or two earlier than 10:54 AM. If the clocks were off by a couple of minutes (which commonly happened), a Virgo rising time is certainly possible.
    Your point about difficult transits not necessarily meaning a defeat is well-taken. It is possible, for example, that for Hillary Clinton the loss of this election will turn out be a great personal triumph in her life trajectory. In addition, even though I saw several very positive factors in Donald Trump’s chart, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he could actually win because of his extreme views in his campaign rhetoric. Even the Trump campaign was predicting his loss (based on the polls) until the final results came in on election night. I think it was William Lilly who said that astrological prediction always involves combining science and art. We are all pretty good at the science of astrology, but being a good artist is often much more difficult and open to subjective influence.

  • Hi Chris Brennan,

    I totally agree with Anthony Louis’s comments, “I think it was William Lilly who said that astrological prediction always involves combining science and art. We are all pretty good at the science of astrology, but being a good artist is often much more difficult and open to subjective influence.”

    As my example , this time, I made a right prediction about U.S. presidential election ,but I’m not sure next time it will be correct again ,even , at this time, I didn’t insist on my prediction at the last.

    You are a great astrologer, I really admire what you have done for us and the whole astrology community. You work hard , search hard, study hard and bring us so many invaluable research and knowledge.

    During this U.S.presidential election prediction, I learn a lot ,not only techniques of astrology or my confidence on astrology, but also ,I realized what I truly wanted , that was , to study astrology happily and freely.

    No one could be always the winner. We can check our mistakes ,but, don’t give ourselves too many burdens.

    Wish you all best,

    Ming

  • My only complaint is against Mark Cullen for waiting so long to put up my prediction. I had been asking him to put it up on that locked page, but he wouldn’t do it saying that my article was done during the primaries and that I should update it. He eventually said he would update it to include me but waited until after the election was over. In any case you will find that my prediction of a close race was accurate. I thought that the result was likely going to be in favor of Clinton by a narrow margin.

    I was less than definitive about this election for a number of reasons, especially due to the lack of clear birth time for Hillary. However I’m still inclined to think it’s fairly close to 8 am for biographical reasons. I think I might have been the one who brought up that Trumps progressions looked like Bill Clinton’s. I definitely saw that but don’t remember if I brought it up on FB or in my article. It reminds me of how Hillary had to shelve her ambitions because of Bill Clinton and interestingly she did so again to a progression of Bill Clinton.

    I wonder though, if one thinks the race will be really close as I did, if one should even call it at all? What rationale or judgement does one use if one thinks the vote will be nearly split down the middle? If one is dogmatic that one candidate should win, shouldn’t the vote be by a wide margin?

    • “I wonder though, if one thinks the race will be really close as I did, if one should even call it at all? What rationale or judgement does one use if one thinks the vote will be nearly split down the middle? If one is dogmatic that one candidate should win, shouldn’t the vote be by a wide margin?’ Curtis – Manwaring – I completely agree. Astrologers might like to think they control reality by being able to predict, but the very nature of astrology is that predictive indicators, which are archetypal (!) can manifest in many ways. A peak does not necessarily mean a win for example. I also think that astrologers are biased not only because of their political leaning but also, in the way they read the indicators – which differs, however nuanced – that is the Art. Astrology as such is NOT an exact science – and that is OK. I think that even getting this close – to be able to predict a very close race is remarkable. One astrologer not on the list who predicted a Trump win is Marina Macario. She came at her conclusion in an abstract way – using Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea’s chart and including fixed stars. I found the premise – (who can beat a globalist?) biased from the get-go and I took issue with this on her site, but it worked for her.

  • The problem for me is that everyone is working with the outcome of the popular vote, but the presidents aren’t voted in, they’re elected into office by the electoral college. Their final decision isn’t officially stated until early December, I believe. Also, people tend to think of the president as the leader of the nation, but legally, the position is as Chief Executive Officer of an administrative corporation. This corporation is actually legally foreign to the states and their residents, unless those same residents contract for federal services and benefits.
    I believe we’ve been looking at this as if it were like a boxing competition, as John Frawley describes in his Sports Astrology book. But since the position is actually appointed by the electoral college, then the rules and techniques used to predict the appointee would be very different than those use for a popularity contest. So the issue isn’t really which candidate is least hated by the citizenry, but which candidate will most completely represent the agendas of the electors. It’s a very different issue I think. Who will win vs. who should win. Who will be appointed vs. who’s the most popular. And don’t forget that Clinton and Trump are 16th cousins! We are never really given a choice, only the illusion of choice, always with the same aristocracy ‘winning’ in every case. “Right wing, Left wing, same bird.”
    A literal translation of the Latin word ‘Citizen’ is “One who willingly pays the debts of another.” Govern means to control, and ment means the mind, so Government actually means “control of the mind.” Grammar is very important!
    I feel that there’s a huge gap between how we believe the system works and how it actually works. I’m surprised and have long held beliefs shattered nearly every day as I’ve investigated this subject in the legal realm, and I wish more people would be motivated to do the same. As the chart makes statements about reality, not imagination, the better we understand reality, the better we can understand what the chart is trying to share with us. How can we understand this message if we don’t understand the reality of the situation we’re trying to look into?
    For my money, I’d rather look at the Aries ingress charts for both the national and regional capitals to understand what will be done by whomever is elected into position. Why waste time and energy following a cult of personality, when the ingress charts will answer any question you can imagine about what will happen in your region? Everything from finance to weather, the health of the populous to the functioning of the post office and power infrastructure. If you have charts for the candidates and have proven the birth times, putting this chart on the ingress can show how the candidate fits into the pattern of the time. Whether they are antagonistic to what the chart promises, or are shown to fulfill an important function within the moment represented will be relatively easy to ascertain.
    Hope this is interesting to someone:)
    Peace to all!

    • Nina Gryphon used the Aries Ingress chart to predict the outcome of the election. Have you read her analysis? It is quite interesting. As you mentioned, it may be too early to say who will actually be residing in the White House. We may have to wait until after the electoral college vote to know for sure. As unlikely as it is that they will become faithless electors, it isn’t impossible. Then there are Trump’s trials to look forward to. Litigation was a big theme in the Aries Ingress chart for D.C. I’m looking forward to seeing how exactly it manifests.

      • @Alison – yes – here’s hoping that with the 2.7 million lead now (dec 7) that the electors will do the right thing and put Hillary in office. And speaking of which – for all those that predicted a Hillary win, even without a sure birth time, SHE DID WIN !!!!! That is what is so totally bizarre about all of this …

  • Error # 1 = assuming that it is possible to make a prediction that is 100% correct. In stock trading no matter how good a trader you are your assessment is only a probability in one direction or another. You may be able to ascertain the relative strength of this probability but it is never a certainty.
    Error # 2 = Assuming that you can say the exact way a given set of energy processes in a person’s chart will manifest in reality. Every astrological process has multiple ways that it can manifest and no matter how good an astrologer you are there is no way for you to know what will exactly happen. Example: seeing prominence does not mean that total success is going to result from this.
    Error # 3 = Assuming during a time of very high outer planet activity in general and in the US chart that whatever the current trend/reality is will continue along the current path. The outer planets always bring in energy that has never been before so there is no way to really predict what will come from their manifestation. They always bring things that you could never see coming. This is why only hind sight is 20/20 but foresight never is, so stop beating yourself up for not having 20/20 foresight.
    Error # 4 = Assuming that it is possible to know a person’s exact birth time. There is too much going on during birth and everyone’s focus is on the birth, not on record keeping. Then, of course, what actually is the birth? The crowing, the coming out, the first breath??????? So setting yourself up to require exactness in any life process is probably a loosing game. Life is an analog process not a digital one.
    Error # 5 = Your body and heart told you that they did not want to do political astrology any more for some really valid reasons. Then you let your intellect (the voice of reason) talk you into doing it “one more time” for the prestige and other supposedly good head reasons. This is a classic failure process shown over and over in myth and movies. The hero recognizes that it is time to get out of the business but somehow he gets talked into one more mission and then, of course, it all goes down the tube. From listening to your podcasts you seem to be a person almost totally focused on your intellect. If you can learn from this that your heart and body always know far more about what is right and good than your intellect ever will you will have gained a great piece of wisdom from this experience. Life has taught me that the intellect can help me figure out how to do something, but that I must listen to my body and heart to know what is the right thing to do in the first place.
    Error # 6 = Not paying attention to the real American character and the upcoming Pluto return plus Neptune opposition Neptune. This one few people would have seen since they buy into the Good American Land of the Free image that Neptune conjunct the MC America and Americans have of themselves. These big outer planet transits have long lead times with omens giving early warnings to people who can read them. The real American character is Neptune MC square Mars DESC = paranoia and aggression toward others. This country was developed from the very beginning based on racism, slavery, and annihilation of the original people for great wealth and profit, all of which are extremely violent processes. Michael Lutin had a great presentation at ISAR about this. Mars on the DESC = we always need an enemy and when we don’t have anyone to fight with outside we create a civil war inside. Just the fact that the NRA and gun people are so powerful here tells you the truth about who this country really is. The country was founded on Manifest Destiny = White people, mostly men, first. Pluto is coming back to it’s natal position soon and all these Plutonian issues are coming up for review plus our Neptune fantasy about how wonderful we are. Trump’s chart was the one that fits hand an glove with this developing historical process. Hillary’s chart activates more prosperous aspects of the US chart but the problem is that given the choice between fighting and doing good things the US seems to prefer to fight. But once again I don’t think you could have been sure which way the country would go, but with the Pluto return coming up the weight has gone to the dark side. So Trump has been elected to bring our collective history of abuse to the weak to be front and center for everyone to see and try to deal with. It is important to remember that despots always harm and kill more of their own people than they do anyone else.

    Astrology is so powerful because it helps us read and understand the mythic energy stories unfolding during our time. The movies are the mythic dreams of our time. Myths are prescriptive. They show what the big issue is. They also say “Do this and things will go badly. Do this and your may get through it.” The 3 Pirates of the Caribbean plus Avatar show the myths of our time. Watching them will give you a good idea of what will be unfolding going forward from here and what issues everyone of us will have to face for quite a few years to come. Hint #1: Pirates 1 deals with facing one’s personal shadow. Americans worked on their collective racism and sexism enough that we got a Black Man as President and a woman running for President. But then the big collective shadow now gets activated to put blacks, women and other weak people back in their boxes. Hint # 2: Pirates 2 starts with the Trump election. Good watching.

  • Curtis Manwaring I am mystified why you have launched into this personal attack on me. Your criticism of me is very unfair and quite a distorted version of reality as I recall events. Firstly, I was initially unaware of you had made an explicit prediction. I wasn’t intentionally refusing to include it on my list. When you did point out the piece I read it. And yes I contacted you hoping to you might be updating it as it was written looking nearly entirely at the primary season and my list was focused on the presidential contest. You said you felt it was complete as it stood. I deferred to your judgement so when I next updated the list a few days later your name and the article was included. So our interaction over this took literally days. I would need to check but as I recall this all occurred in the summer. So your piece has been up for months. So frankly, I dont think you have a legitimate basis for a complaint here. Especially, as I have been doing this as a voluntary task in my own spare time as a service to the astrological community in general. Your position is quite different from astrologers who made an accurate Trump victory prediction I missed off my list . For example I totally missed Smiljana Gavrancic’s prediction Trump would win back in 2015. I really should have spotted this much earlier. She had to contact me to point this out. If Smiljana had made a complaint about being neglected on my list she had considerable justification! But she is too gracious a person to do that.

  • I really would recommend to avoid predictions if one is not specifically asked for one by the person itself. Over many years i observed that when one is asked for some prediction it really works quite well provided that one has done some solid rectification by using past life events of the querent. (A good method is using some “critical degree” material by the two german astrologers Wolfgang Doebereiner and Michael Roscher: both of them developed two very interesting systems of “critcal degrees ” in the Zodiac which i use for rectification )That is just my personal opinion

  • Having read (and loved) John Frawley’s books, I wonder why none of us thought to use horary to predict the election? There are plenty of useful techniques and it doesn’t require accurate birth data. The only drawback is the mastery one must acquire to have faith in the conclusions reached. It has the ability to cut through a lot of distracting detours and ‘story telling’ though.
    It only works if you are passionate about your question, or if you’re emotionally involved in the outcome, so it would be a perfect application, I think. There certainly is a fine line between being passionate and being out of touch with reality. Astrology aside, I think this may be one of the foundational challenges of being human:) I know I struggle with it frequently enough. It can be a challenge to see what’s there instead of trying to force the chart to say what I want it to say!
    Frawley describes how, during the English civil war in the 1600’s, the popular astrologers at the time lined up some with the crown and some for the parliament and made predictions that suited their desired outcome. Not even Lilly and Culpeper were immune! Well, the result was that the public became fed up with the astrologers and no longer trusted their judgement, and I believe this loss of faith was earned, even though these were some of the best practitioners of the art. So, in England astrology went from it’s highest peak of popularity to quickly becoming an endangered species! It didn’t recover in England until the Theosophists started writing their books in the 1880’s and 90’s. It nearly went entirely extinct! I bring this up, because I think it’s a valuable cautionary example of what can happen when passion overtakes our ability to be rational and in touch with reality.
    I believe I understand what Phillip says in his comment above, but I respectfully disagree on two points. First, as these are public persons and their choices will effect us all, we certainly have enough at stake personally to validate our interest. And second, we can use horary, as I mentioned already, and bypass any attempts to rectify that can’t be cross checked for accuracy.
    I will check out the astrologers he mentions. From a quick search they sound interesting.
    This has been an engaging commentary on this podcast. Really enjoying it!

  • I suddenly had the idea I had to listen if you had another podcast ready to see if I could find out what Rising sign you decided to use. at 3:25am, after I had listened for an hour and a minute, I checked my transits. tMoon trine Venus, and tVenus trine Moon. Goodies on my Moon/Venus midpoint…. I love event astrology: Gets a shoutout. 🙂

    I’ve been happily using 0Vir00 rising since then.

  • Hi Chris–so enjoyed your synopsis and self evaluation podcast on the aftermath of this election. So refreshing to hear your thought processes about both the right judgements and the wrong ones. It seems so odd to me that although we can follow along so completely with Hillary’s biography and the zod rel periods., we do not see such dramatic evidence with Trump. He has no LB period on levels one and two until after Dec 28 2017 -not even NOW. It almost is like he is not going to change what he does even though he has won the election. My thinking that with this strong pattern at that time, coupled with the eclipse on his ascendant next summer, leads me to believe he might not make it through the 4 years. Time will tell. This whole event has so much rich material for reflection on so many levels. Thanks too for your contributions to the astrological community concerning a “proper” perspective on astrology itself..

  • Hey Chris! I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast. Self reflection and evaluation not only makes for an excellent astrologer but also a wonderful human being. Keep up the good work.