WITH THE Pennsylvania primary fast approaching, the astrologer's search for the presidential candidates' reliable birth data shifts from curious research to a scramble. An unprecedented lack of information on any of the candidates leaves us wondering how to forecast the election, and the unfortunately-timed death of astrologer Frances McEvoy adds an interesting twist to the authenticity of the "precise" data she left behind.
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As the countdown to the election downshifts from months to weeks, there is a renewed sense of urgency about locating reliable data. It is critical to obtain reliable birth times for the presidential candidates, since casting their charts accurately requires this information. The following is the story of my quest for this data, and the elusive woman who claimed to retrieve it.
In March 2007, I attended the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR) astrological conference in Baltimore, where I sat in on a lecture by Shelley Ackerman on the 2008 election. During the course of the lecture, the point came up that the birth data for the candidates is either nonexistent or highly ambiguous. At one point, the subject of Hillary Clinton's natal chart came up, for which there are several proposed birth times from different sources, and a discussion ensued about which chart was the correct one.
Toward the end of the discussion, an older woman stood up and stated, quite calmly and somewhat mysteriously, that Hillary was definitely born at 8:02 am, and that the Scorpio rising chart was the correct one. The unusual air of calmness and conviction about the woman struck me as interesting, and I quickly jotted down the time. Having done some cursory investigations into Hillary's birth chart the previous fall, I had come to the conclusion that the Scorpio rising chart was, most likely, the correct one, although I was still perplexed to hear this woman state a precise time with such assurance; it was as if she had some sort of inside information.
Purely by chance, I ran into the woman a couple of days later as I was checking out of my hotel room. I was still curious as to why she was so confident about Hillary's birth time, and I asked her about it. Although I can't remember the precise words she used, she explained that she did have a connection: she elaborated that either she or someone that she was close to had seen the birth certificate directly. Further, she said that Hillary had been told something negative about the sign Scorpio; as a result of this, Hillary did not want to confirm the actual birth time.
Relaying this story to me as we stood next to the hotel elevator, the woman seemed quite sincere, and I was excited to get what appeared to be inside information. I thanked her for sharing this with me and asked her what her name was. She said her name was Frances McEvoy.
After receiving an encouraging email in December 2007 from a reader of my blog who was interested in my take on the U.S. election, I began a new search to see if any astrologers had sequestered more reliable birth data. I found Barack Obama's birth time, 1:06 pm, and inquired whether anyone knew the source. I came to find out that, according to one website, the 1:06 pm time "was relayed by astrologer Frances McEvoy to astrology newsgroups, and supposedly originated from Obama's own memory when he was asked what time he was born during his New Hampshire visit."
While it was great to have a birth time for another one of the leading candidates in the election, I began to feel a bit uneasy about relying on one astrologer for the data on both Democratic candidates. Only perpetuating my unease, I discovered that Frances McEvoy had announced Mitt Romney's birth time -- 9:15 am -- as well.
She published the data on Astrodatabank, listing it as a direct quote from Romney. To reiterate, Frances McEvoy is the source of not just one, but both Democratic candidates: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; and she also provided the birth time of Mitt Romney. Needless to say, it is highly unusual for one person to be the source of two candidates, but three is completely unprecedented.
Hillary Clinton knows what time she was born, but she won't tell!
For those unfamiliar with astrological folklore, Astrodatabank was begun by Lois Rodden in the days before using accurate, documented birth data of public figures was common practice. She invented a rating system for assessing the data, which included the AA rating (birth certificate in hand), the A rating (from memory), and the DD rating, for dirty data. Currently, that rating system seems to be a little stressed out.
Upon researching John McCain's birth data, I was relieved to find it reported by staffers working for his campaign. Frankly, if I found the time -- 9:00 am -- to be sourced by Frances McEvoy as well, I wouldn't know what to deduce. The time is obviously rounded, although we don't know by how much, and the campaign staffers apparently said that they don't have documentation in order to confirm the time.
Astrodatabank's entry provides more background information on this issue as well as the sources. "Shelley Ackerman quotes the Internet for 9:00 am, from Rowena Wall who wrote that she obtained the data from two different staffers at McCain's campaign HQ. Mark McDonough called both the election office and Senator McCain's political office and was told that they had no copy of the medical records on hand to provide written documentation of his birth time. McCain's deputy press secretary said she had many people call for his birth time and she had called his mother. Mom said, 'about 9 am'."
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John McCain aside, I wanted to get more background on Frances McEvoy and her curiously accurate candidate birth times. How could she be the source of Clinton, Obama and Romney, when no one else in the country seems able to secure even one time? Unfortunately, I never got the chance to ask Frances about the reliability of her data; a few days after I realized that she was the source for the three candidates, she passed away.
I'm not suggesting that Ms. McEvoy was circulating faulty data, only that the circumstances are somewhat unusual in that she is the main source for birth data on these three candidates, and this raises some questions mainly owing to the fact that I did not know her very well.
According to another astrologer named Robert Blaschke, she was also the original source of the birth time for John Kerry prior to the 2004 election. From what I can determine from the Astrodatabank records, Frances was originally told by Kerry's mother that he was born sometime around "sunrise." Having only a general notion that Kerry was born sometime around sunrise she then appears to have adjusted the time a bit in order to come up with what she felt was a plausible ascendant, and she submitted it to Astrodatabank as an exact time of 7:10 am.
Later, Blaschke actually spoke with Kerry's sister-in-law from his first marriage, and she gave him an exact birth time of 8:03 am, nearly an hour later than McEvoy's rectified time.
The issue is that we don't know at this point, or I don't know, if the times given to Frances McEvoy for Clinton, Obama and Romney were exact times straight from the birth certificate, or if they were general times like Kerry's which she then rectified or modified somehow. When dealing with some of the more precise techniques that I work with, such as the 'lots' for example (the ancient precursor to the Arabic Parts system), even the slightest changes in time can really alter the entire character of the birth chart and any predictions that might be based on it. Even in Obama's case, more precise techniques aside, the Moon is in a completely different sign if he were born just a few minutes before the 1:06 pm birth time, having moved from Taurus into Gemini at 1:02 pm that day.
The same is true for Clinton; earlier birth times give a Pisces Moon and later ones give an Aries Moon -- there is a big difference.
Apparently McEvoy was a dedicated political junkie and collector of birth data, so it wouldn't be that surprising if she made it a point of going to events hosted by certain campaigns in order to ask the candidates their birth time directly. I'm also told that her husband was a politician, so she may have had additional political connections as a result of that. Apparently, though, Mrs. McEvoy wouldn't have needed her husband's assistance to access this information.
She had her own career in politics and journalism to assist her. According to her obituary, she worked as a political correspondent, press secretary to Senator Leslie B. Cutler of Needham, and reporter for the Somerville Journal and Waltham News Tribune.
The main question that is raised is the degree to which she normally rectified birth times, and if the times she was given were specific ones derived from the birth certificates or if they were general times derived from the candidate's memory that were then adjusted using some sort of rectification technique.
With all of the confusion surrounding the birth times of nearly every current and previous presidential candidate, it seems like we aren't in a much better position to make predictions about the final outcome of the upcoming election than we were a year ago. Our only real options are either (A) to get more astrologers trying to contact the candidates and their staff in order to get verified birth times, or (B) to attempt to rectify each of their charts individually. The former option seems like the most reliable thing to do, while the latter seems like the most tedious and unreliable option, although ultimately if we are still coming up empty-handed a few months from now it may be our only choice.
With these birth data issues in mind, this should be a rallying call for the astrological community to renew its efforts to obtain reliable birth times for the presidential candidates. What we need are multiple documented sources, preferably directly from the candidates themselves.
These efforts should be directed towards obtaining birth times not only for those candidates who are still in the presidential race, but also from those who have or who will drop out of the race in time, since accurate knowledge of their birth times will help to contribute to our study of their lives in the future. In so doing, astrologers will help to contribute to a tradition of empirical observation and testing that has sustained our practice for over two millennia now, and these efforts will help to maintain and improve the practice of astrology for generations to come.
Chris Brennan is a practicing astrologer from Denver, Colorado. He was educated at Kepler College, and he is the president of the Association for Young Astrologers as well as the current research director of the National Council for Geocosmic Research.
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