Mr. Hyde

An Interdimensional study of Dr. Harold Shipman

Rev Pam Crane

DFAstrolS, DMSAstrol, DPCCH

 

In one issue of my email bulletin 'Small World', I had a stab (unintentional choice of verb!...) at guessing the birthdate for Britain's most alarming serial killer, Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman. I thought this evasive man might have been born with the Sun in Pisces, but not so. It turned out that in principle I had been working along the right lines (watching the change of reported age in the press) but in practice the media are sloppy, and he had already had his 53rd birthday while they were still referring to him as 52. But not long before! In fact he was born in Nottingham not in February/March but on January 14th 1946, time unknown to us and open to speculation.

For the benefit of overseas readers who may not have caught up with this extraordinary and painful story, this man may have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 150 elderly patients (some speculate even over 1000), mainly women, between the years 1984 (when on September 21st his first suspected victim died) and June 24th 1998 when he killed former Hyde (in Lancashire) Mayoress Kathleen Grundy.

His method was to stockpile over-prescriptions of di-morphine and typically to inject the patient on the pretext of taking a blood sample. He would then dispassionately watch her expire in her own chair, on her own bed, on his consulting couch, before calling relatives and ambulance to say that the old lady had suddenly and unexpectedly died. He would proceed to doctor his computer records to show a false medical history of heart or other hidden disease (unsuccessfully, as it turned out, as he was unaware of software history trails!) and seek out a co-signatory to expedite the necessary cremation that would destroy the chemical evidence. His motive was not pecuniary.

What do you make of this disturbed mind?

As you would anticipate, he has a very difficult pattern. His early history includes the death of his own mother, Vera, from cancer in June 1963 in her mid-forties. The attending doctor managed her pain with morphine injections.

He married Primrose Oxtoby on November 5th 1966. Her date of birth is 19th April 1949 to parents George and Edna who farmed near York. They have four children - Sarah, born in Harrogate in February 1967, Christopher in 1971, David (March 20th 1979 in Mottram), and Samuel (also born in Mottram, 4th April 1982.)

He qualified in 1971, and was hired by a group practice in Todmorden, Yorkshire on March 1st 1974. Here he won the trust of his women patients, and became involved with water in at least two ways - restoring local canals, and dinghy sailing.

Shipman started over-prescribing and hoarding drugs early in his medical career. Iinitially this was limited to Pethidine, for his own use. On February 13th 1976 he was eventually convicted of forging prescriptions and stealing drugs...but the medical authorities did not see fit to strike the offending doctor off the medical register.

Shipman was eventually charged with the first of the 15 murders on 7th September 1998, appearing in court the next day; the major interview took place in Ashton-under-Lyne police station on October 5th, ending at 5h12 pm when he cracked, wept in his cell, and refused to utter another word except flat denials. The trial at Preston Crown Court began on October 5th 1999. He was convicted on January 31st 2000 when the jury stood to give their verdict at 4h37pm. Shipman was led to the cells at 5h07pm that day, for Life several times over - and at least 23 further police investigations were planned.

Forensic Astrology

The whole case blew up again after nearly a year, with the dawning realisation that this man had probably been bumping off people's loved parents and grandparents since the early '70s, even back in his first partnership in Todmorden in the north of England.

My initial stab at his possible birthdate had missed the mark, and now of course we know his date of birth; it was January 14th 1946 in Nottingham, UK. Thus informed, it did seem a good idea to have a crack at rectifying his chart - this would at least provide a speculative time to play with, and now there was a lot of detailed biography to help, as well as names which would be found among the asteroids.

One very important date - maybe the key date - in his life was the day his mother Vera died. But nowhere in all my cuttings, and nowhere in the book I had bought, could I track it down. The nearest I could get was June 1963 ... and then, crucially, that it had been a Friday, and she had died just after he came home from school.

So we have a shortlist of four Fridays - June 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th at somewhere around 4pm ... and not much later than this, was my hunch, as the broadsheets had all published a startling graph to show that the GP had killed his ladies at home almost always between 2 and 4 in the afternoon.

I chose the 21^st of June.

Why? Because Shipman was born with a Sun-Saturn opposition - and from its Sidereal position this swings back to align perfectly with his end Sagittarius/Gemini nodal axis. For comparison, this Sidereal Sun in the Tropical South Node echoes a similar contact in Hitler's chart, between Draconic Sun and Tropical South Node: the life is branded by the corrupt, selfish distortion and abuse of gifts that were meant to bless society.

On the 21st June 1963 a New Moon fell on that very axis, on his sidereal Saturn/tropical North Node conjunction....in turn conjoined by asteroid "AlmaMater", bounteous mother.

Next day I found a second biography of Harold Shipman, turned the pages - and found the date of Vera's death. June 21st 1963. Excellent!

By 5pm on the 21^st - and this must surely be the time of death - Neptune (drugs) was rising in Scorpio as Saturn (mortality) still held the IC. Tellingly, asteroid "Vera" had just risen, with "Pax" on the Midheaven ... she was finally at peace after a long struggle with cancer. Sidereal asteroid "Fred" was home at the IC conjunct Saturn. "Paulina" - his sister Pauline - was setting and therefore present; and so was asteroid "Tea". Shipman habitually sent his patients to their eternal rest with their tea at their elbow!

If you look now at Shipman's own birthchart as a 'Q' chart (a Quotidian chart, set for his birthday but at the same time of day as the event and for the same zone) at 17h00 BST, there is startling confirmation - for at this time (interestingly 4pm GMT!) the most powerful and lethal configuration in the GP's chart appears: exactly on the horizon lies the Mars/Saturn conjunction in Cancer, rising, with the Capricorn Sun and Venus setting ( killing of the mother by injection at the hand of the loving son) ; all square a conjunction of Chiron and Jupiter (the identity he claimed for himself, "the great doctor".)

Now, I don't think this remarkable 'Q' pattern was also his birth moment. A day's unremitting hard labour with Solar Arcs, progressions back and forth, synastry, transits, interdimensional patterning, books and cuttings, and by no means least the asteroids, ultimately suggested 08h40 am - because at this time all the jigsaw pieces finally clicked together and I felt I had a good working speculative nativity.

The resulting Dwad patterns support it well: tropically, a Neptune MC conjunction lines up with that Sun,Venus / Mars,Saturn, bringing his most sensitive axis into full prominence .. and adding that curious mystique and glamour that comes of notoriety and a saturnine refusal to speak about his case any further. The dwad Moon near radix Neptune adds to this sense that much remains to be known; and the radix Moon in turn, at 10 Gemini in the 4th, is close-knit with dwad Chiron/Pluto accurately picturing his profound inner pain from the early trauma, his mother's cancer and death. The dwad Libran Sun is also near the 8th-house radix Neptune, and Chiron; a dwad Aquarius Ascendant tightly opposite dwad Jupiter and radix Pluto completes a convincing image of himself in his mind as the benign medical magician who can make all things well, bound only by his own rules. This is what the Dwad, that special version of the 12^th harmonic which fits over the framework of the decans, unfailingly shows us - the vivid inner reality of the private mind that Jesus pointedly affirmed, 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!'

Remarkably, we find the same geometry in the Draconic dwad (though involving different signs); but it is in the Sidereal, where we each map our place in society and in history, that the full force of this man's ambition and perversity hit home.

The sidereal dwad Sun and Moon are found in Scorpio in the radix 10th, opposite dwad Mars at their midpoint - which in turn intimately conjoins radix Uranus and Moon in 4th. The dwad Descendant ties in tightly to radix Chiron in sidereal Virgo; and dwad Uranus from 0° Capricorn hits the 29° Sag/Gemini sidereal Sun/Mars, Saturn to double the likelihood that this man, whose relationships will revolve memorably around pain, is one who will also be remembered for writing his own rule-book on the control and sudden ending of others' lives. Lives which his skewed vision interprets as intolerable; endings which his arrogance perceives as merciful release.

If further evidence were needed, look at the Contrascia (which I prefer to the Antiscia, as they are the natural reciprocals, in the 360 degree wheel, of the radix positions.)

Here the Moon, Uranus, IC/MC alignment joins closely and unambiguously with the axis of Sun, Venus / Mars, Saturn; every time one of these axes is triggered by transit, progression or direction, so at the same time is the invisibly connected other, that occupies the other two corners of their shared rectangle on the Ecliptic. Here is perhaps the most graphic pattern yet for the career bringing sudden death to loved elderly women and men at the point of a needle. You may also like to look at his Sun/Moon arc transform chart, his sense of completion.

“Show me some I.D.”

Do asteroids also support this possible 08h40 time? It would appear so!

Those of you who are still new to the idea of using tiny fragments of orbiting rock and ice, of which thousands have now been tracked, numbered and named, may like to see them as an ever-growing encyclopaedia of names and ideas, of which a small selection is relevant to each one of us. In an age when the obsession with personal data is almost fanatical, the object of greatest desire the tiny and elegant PDA in which we effectively carry around the details of our entire private and public life, our work and our dreams, our contacts and our calendar, is it any wonder that the heavens have as usual provided astrologers with a celestial counterpart?

A stranger knocks on the door/ we are presented with a speculative chart/ so naturally we reply, "Show me some I.D."

The angles and the Lights in every chart (often including the nodal axis) act as an I.D. wallet, a lapel badge, a filofax, a PDA. If you have the right time, and the right angles, the names of asteroids clustering on these axes should describe the people, places, ideas and attachments central to that individual's life. Conversely (and this is the only practicable way to approach asteroid work) when names of these all-important elements in a life are sought in the asteroid database and their positions mapped, you should find them aligned in virtual 'phrases' on the main chart axes. If not, despite adding the radix draconic, sidereal, helio and especially the tropical dwad positions, then the time is certainly wrong.

At 08h40 on January 14th 1946, asteroid 'Doctorwatson' was rising with sidereal 'Hygeia', helio 'Paracelsus' and 'Goddard' (his best friend at school) setting. 'Paulina' - his sister - was at the IC, at home (with 'Nemesis'). Opposite, on the MC, the career-point, were 'Scientia' and 'Shipka' (the closest match to 'Shipman'). 'Counselman' is with the Sun... and, for this "Dr. Death", so is draconic 'Atropos'. Draconic 'Christophe' (his son) and 'D'Arrest' are on the tropical Desc. Draconic 'Pillmore' / 'Darwin' / sidereal 'Hybris' and 'Hygeia' / 'VeraLynn' (his mother Vera) oppose close to the tropical MC / IC and Moon. Conjunct that Gemini Moon are helio 'Probitas', 'Silentium' and 'Requiem' with sidereal 'Pax'... Upright citizens deserve to rest in peace. Helio 'Tea' and 'Justitia' conjoin helio Mercury close to his IC where we also find sidereal 'Samuele' and 'Sara' his other children, and 'Signe' - Shipman did a lot of signing, of the many death certificates which eventually led to his conviction. Tropical 'Signe', together with draconic 'Autonoma' and 'Mercedes' - the maverick act of mercy - is in his fateful South Node. The same key asteroids recur in other interdimensional alignments. We have some I.D.

Finally, we even know the inceptional chart for Hyde in Lancashire, where Dr. Shipman killed so many of his patients. This was on February 18th, 1881, set for 0h00 UT, data courtesy of the late Harold Wigglesworth in ‘The Astrology of Towns and Cities.’ Coordinates are 53N27, 2W04. Placing the composite of Hyde and the doctor between the two radix charts in a tri-wheel, we find (using 08h40 again) a highly significant conjunction of Chiron/Uranus straddling his Desc, Saturn between his angular Moon and IC, the Moon right on his Pluto, and an opposition of Jupiter/Neptune bringing inflated self-confidence and narcotic relief to his Sun/Mars/Saturn. The composite MC touches Hyde's Moon; its Mars opposes Shipman's, and their nodal axes lie inverted to each other.

The pattern is at its most dramatic when we look at the Q chart, ie Hyde set up for Shipman's own speculative time of 08h40. The Moon is exactly setting opposite a rising Venus/Jupiter/Saturn conjunction ... now then! Here is something new for you!... What I have recently found is the crucial importance of the Dwads of 'Q' charts: in these, the accuracy becomes stunning. And here we find a tight conjunction of Capricorn Sun/Saturn/Uranus (conjunct Shipman's own Sun) all exactly square the Moon in Aries. For the town of Hyde, Shipman’s presence means the sudden separation of elderly husbands and wives in aggressively accelerated death.

Q.E.D.