I...buried...Paul :The Astrology of the 1969 Beatle Death Rumour

[Guest guest]

I just finished reading a fascinating book about the 1969 rumour that Beatle

Paul McCartney was dead. During October 1969, a growing number of young people

became convinced that McCartney was killed in a 1966 road accident and had been

substituted with a lookalike double. Most of the evidence for this rumour was

found in clues on album covers and song lyrics. Some of these words were barely

discernible background patter. At the end of Strawberry Fields Fovever, John's

slowed voice apparently intones: " I buried Paul " . Lennon later claimed he said

" cranberry sauce " . Other clues could be found while playing songs backwards.

The White Album's Revolution #9 for example, has the repeated phrase " number

nine " transformed to " turn me on, dead man " when played backwards.

 

The power and extent of this rumour was phenomenal. It started on a few

scattered college campuses in the US in Sept and early October. By October

18th, the rumour had gone mainstream and radio stations were being flooded with

calls from listeners. Over the next two weeks, major media outlets picked up

the story. It appeared on the nightly news and was covered on talk shows and

magazines. It was only the publication of a Life magazine story with pictures

of McCartney on his farm in Scotland on November 7 that the rumour gradually

lost its momentum.

 

In retrospect, it all sounds like an amusing episode from an another era, the

by-product of too many stoned college kids with too much time on their hands.

But the astrology of it is interesting. Here I'm eager to test the planetary

influences at work in the USA chart I'm currently curious about: July 4 1776,

2.17 pm.

 

For a rumour, one immediately thinks distorted communication and a possible

affliction to Mercury. We could also think of the Moon since rumours are

appealing to unclear or suggestible minds. In this chart, Mercury 3Cancer31 and

Moon 4Aquarius42 are quincunx. I guess it should come as no surprise that both

planets were aspected by Neptune 3Scorpio42 at the start of the rumour! This

Neptune influence on both planets of the mind was an important foundation for

the impressionable thinking that was going on in the US at the time. By the

publication of the Life magazine article, Neptune had moved to 4Scorpio30.

 

It is also worth noting that the chart was running Ketu-Moon dasha at the time

and so the " Neptunized " condition of the Moon would have been highlighted.

Moreover, this USA Moon is troubled: it is debilitated in Scorpio in the

navamsha and with Rahu. Perhaps that describes the tendency of the US to go too

far, or get too fanatical about some things. I could go off on a tangent here,

but I won't...

 

Neptune's transit is fairly slow however so we still need to see why the rumour

hit during late October rather than the other times during which Neptune was

aspecting the Moon and Mercury.

 

Here are a few other key transit influences:

 

1) Tr Jupiter 24Virgo17, planet of wisdom and deliberative thinking, was

conjunct the 12th house Saturn 24Virgo04 at the time the rumour went national.

By the time the rumour had faded, tr Jupiter had moved to 28 Virgo and out of

orb of Saturn.

 

2) On October 15th, Tr Mars 22Virgo was in the 3rd house of this Libra rising

chart. This would give energy to the area of communication needed to spread a

rumour.

 

3) Tr Mercury 10Virgo was moving through the 12th house suggesting lost or

ethereal communication.

 

4) Tr retrograde Saturn 13Aries04 was casting a full 3H (sextile) to the chart

ruler Venus 12Gemini13. This Saturn influence could have fueled interest in the

overall morbidity of the " Paul is dead " rumour. Venus here could represent the

national as a whole, as well as matters pertaining to artists like McCartney.

By the end of the rumour, tr Saturn had moved back to 11Aries, more than two

degrees out of orb from Venus.

 

5) Tr Uranus 12Virgo06 was square chart ruler Venus 12Gemini13 and applying.

Another important ingredient, the Uranian influence describes the national

fascination with such a bizarre and unusual story such as the death rumour or

hoax.

 

6) Amazingly, Pluto, the third outer planet was also involved. Pluto 2Virgo30

was both quincunx Moon 4Aq42 and sextile Mercury 3Cn31. The Pluto influence

could also have created a peculiar interest in the subject of death, and the

possibility of a cover-up or alternatively a deliberate hoax by the Beatles

devised to sell more records.

 

No single retrospective event analysis is grounds to adopt a natal chart, but

this one does have a lot of appeal. At very least, it gives credence to all

those July 4 1776 charts what would have Venus and Mercury in their respective

positions.

 

The Moon's early afternoon position at 4 Aq works well in light of the multi

planet hits to it, although I freely admit that there is so much going on in

this chart for the death rumour that one needn't insist on having the Moon

there. But it just works that much better.

 

goo-goo ga-choob,

 

Chris

 

 

Christopher Kevill

http://modernVedic Astrology.com