I waited until now to share this horary because I didn’t want to influence or discourage anyone before the outcome played out in real time. “Will Bernie win the Democratic nomination?” May 6, 2016, 3:03 p.m. in Milwaukee, WI; 20 Virgo Asc.
To review the rules of election horaries, please refer to our essential reference, John Frawley’s The Horary Textbook, Revised Edition, pages 251-253.
I am the querent. In the Democratic presidential primary I was a passionate supporter of Bernie Sanders. My candidate, Mr. Sanders, is signified by Mercury, ruler of Virgo on the first house cusp. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, is signified by Jupiter, ruler of Pisces on the 7th house cusp.
At first glance I thought, “Oh, look! The Moon goes immediately to conjunct Mercury—Bernie will win!!!!!” That was an emotional first-reaction, however. Looking again I noticed Mercury’s condition: it is combust. Combustion is the worst accidental debility a planet can suffer. Is it possible, in the context of an election contest, for a candidate who has been destroyed to win? No, it really isn’t. Bernie will lose, and so he did.
Now let’s look at Jupiter, Mrs. Clinton’s significator. Jupiter is in detriment and poorly placed in the 12th House. That’s certainly not the picture of a winning candidate. Mrs. Clinton is a power-broker, so one might expect her planet to be accidentally strong at the very least. I’m tempted to go outside the rules and assign Mrs. Clinton a different planet—such as Venus, essentially strong in its own fixed sign of Taurus and ruling several other planets—but in the end, it's not advisable to do this. The question is about Mr. Sanders; we know for sure which planet signifies him, and we have a definitive testimony for No. There’s no compelling reason to go any further with the analysis, nor should we change the rules because things don't seem to fit our preconceived notions.
Why doesn’t the Moon’s applying conjunction with Mercury delivery the nomination to Mr. Sanders, as it should do according to the rules? The answer may simply be in Mercury's combusted state. Or, perhaps the receptions are the reason: whatever Venus signifies, the Moon is in positive mutual reception with it, and this strong reception may overpower the conjunction.
I do wonder what the Sun signifies—this Sun that does such harm to Mr. Sanders. While it is tempting to speculate that the Sun signifies a particular person or entity--such the Democratic Party itself or its leadership body, the Democratic National Committee (DNC)--in the end I don’t think we can know for sure.
What we do know for certain is that Bernie Sanders did not win the Democratic nomination. This horary chart shows him losing the contest by virtue of the accidental debility of combustion.
PHOTOS: All photos appearing in this post are from Wikimedia Commons and are used under a Creative Commons license. The photo above is cropped from the original, which appears below. The second photo of Mr. Sanders below is also cropped from the original.
