Sunday, July 7, 2013

The Cancer astrologer: Jan Gerhard Toonder

Late Dutch astrologer Jan Gerhard Toonder is well known among students of astrology for the book that he wrote in 1970, together with John Anthony West: "The case for astrology". I referred to that book on Astromarkt when I wrote about time twins and here (http://astropost.blogspot.nl/2013/02/born-same-day-die-another-day-time-twins.html ). I mentioned the book, because there is a story in that book about a king and a stable boy born on the same place and hour. That story is in fact a myth and untrue (someone verified it...). Nevertheless, the book contains a lot of interesting information waiting to be verified by those interested in astrology.

You know that I always search for Jupiter-Uranus connections in the charts of astrologers. Toonder has Jupiter in Aquarius, ruled by Uranus in Aquarius, on Midheaven. The birth time given by Astrodatabank is 0:40 hours, while the source note gives 1:00 a.m. If the birth time is in between, the MC is in between Jupiter and Uranus*)
Here is the chart:


You may wonder what is typical for a Cancer astrologer? I think that it is history. One of the concepts of Cancer is to keep the past alive. Jan Gerhard Toonder wrote about the dawn of astrology. He also mentions important works and findings. It is almost a complete work on ideas, myths (!) and facts about astrology! To give you an idea:
On page 41 (Dutch version) he says that astrology might be known thousands of years before Babylon. A temple in Luxor (Egypt) shows a painting of a human being and signs like Sagittarius, Leo, Taurus and Aries (for the head, just like today!) related to certain parts of the body. Hundreds of years before Christ there is an inscription in Assyria:"When Jupiter joins Venus, the prayers of the nation will reach the heart of the gods. Merodach and Sarapanitum will hear the prayers and have mercy on the people. May they send me a donkey to rest my feet… written by Nirgat-itir." He also tells tales about Kepler and says that this astronomer/astrologer stopped calculating the chart of Wallenstein for the day that he died (and this BEFORE the day that he died). Unfortunately he doesn't give data... BTW the picture here is also without date:).


So, Jan Gerhard Toonder (and John Anthony West) gave us a story about astrology's history. An interesting story, that would be more complete with chart drawings and data. I'd like to verify some of those stories. Jan Gerhard Toonder was also a poet and an author of more books. His brother (Marten Toonder) was an author, too, and much more famous than he was.


*)As always with stats, I also found astrologers without a Jupiter-Uranus connection in the chart. But most of them have it.

LINKS
http://astropost.blogspot.nl/2013/06/ada-muir-gemini-astrologer.html
Gemini: instructing

http://astropost.blogspot.nl/2012/10/margareth-hone-libra-astrologer.html
Libra: working together

In the Case for Astrology is an untrue story about time twins that I mention in this post:
http://astropost.blogspot.nl/2013/02/born-same-day-die-another-day-time-twins.html

Also visit: Astromarkt.net All rights reserved


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