Benjamin Franklin was the most respected and most famous person in Colonial America. Most American school children know Ben was the first Postmaster General and publisher of Poor Richard's Almanak, as well as the discoverer of electricity and inventor of bifocals.
But few Americans realize Ben was the founder of the Masonic Lodge in the colonies and he used the Mason organization to help build support for the American Revolution (Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to have been Masons. George Washington was a Mason and 35 of his generals were also members of the Masons. Washington even took his presidential oath of office with his hand on a bible borrowed from the New York Masonic Lodge.)
Benjamin Franklin and just about every single other Colonial Mason believed in God ("Providence") and astrology. Ben Franklin was Colonial America's greatest astrologer (click here for proof Benjamin Franklin was an astrologer).
But Ben's astrology was very different from the Traditional or Uranian Astrology being pushed these days by the Horoscope columnists and the likes of ISAR, IFAN and the NCGR. Ben Franklin did not use houses. Ben never used any House system. Instead, Ben used the alignment of the planets, the declinations and even heliocentric astrology. In other words, Ben Franklin would have loved Magi Astrology because it also uses what Ben did.
Let us call Benjamin Franklin's form of astrology "Ben Franklin Astrology."
The principles of Benjamin Franklin Astrology were very similar to the principles being used by the Magi Society. The most important principle of Benjamin Franklin Astrology is:
When two planets form a "planetary eclipse" it is a significant sign that anything born at that time is powerful.
What is a Planetary Eclipse?
A Planetary Eclipse occurs when two planets in the sky look like they are on right on top of each other (or very close to being so). This means the two planets are both conjunct in the longitudes and parallel in the declinations, like a solar eclipse where the Moon is on top of the Sun.
When Traditional Astrologers now say two planets are in conjunction, it only means that the two planets are in the same degree of longitude (like both planets are at 15 degrees of Capricorn.) However, if we look at the actual sky, the two planets may not be "on top of each other" because the declinations of the planets may be off by dozens of degrees.
All astrologers understand that a conjunction of two planets is meaningful. But intuitively, we all know that a Planetary Eclipse of two planets is much more meaningful than a mere conjunction of two planets.
Therefore, not surprisingly, according to the principles of Benjamin Franklin Astrology, the most powerful astrological event is when two planets are so close together in the sky they form a Planetary Eclipse.
When Benjamin Franklin picked a date for America's Founding Fathers to sign the Declaration of Independence, he made sure the day was a fabulous astrological day. He was not going to settle for a day when only two planets were going to form a planetary eclipse. He chose July 4, 1776, because on that day, FIVE planets came together in the sky to form a FIVE PLANET PLANETARY ECLIPSE.
Below is full view of this remarkable 5-planet Planetary Eclipse that occurred on July 4, 1776. (This is a full view of the sky for that date. The homepage of this website has a truncated version of this image that shows only a small section of the sky.)
[Magi StarScope of July 4, 1776, above is a view of the actual sky and shows multiple Planetary Eclipses - the white dots are stars of magnitude stronger than 3.2. The horizontal green line represents the ecliptic and the two horizontal blue lines represent 23.44 degrees north and south declinations, which are the positions of the Sun on the two solstices.]
From the time Ben could first write, he was drawing maps of the sky when the planets and stars were visible and he quickly realized that when Jupiter (the brightest planet in the sky) and the Sun made a Planetary Eclipse, the planets were giving us folks on Earth a sign that something remarkably good was happening. This is called a Sun-Jupiter Planetary Eclipse.
There was a Sun-Jupiter Planetary Eclipse when America's Founders signed the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), and also when the US Constitution became effective (June 21, 1788) on the day New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the US Constitution.
There are no coincidences in life.
Benjamin Franklin also paid a lot of attention to another kind of eclipse - STAR ECLIPSES.
A Star Eclipse is formed when a planet is on top of a star. This was the most basic principle of ancient astrologers. (Rob Hand seems to have missed this altogether in his decade long study of ancient astrology.)
A Star Eclipse is significant and has power but is not nearly as powerful as a Planetary Eclipse - unless the Star Eclipse occurs at the same time as a Planetary Eclipse.
That is exactly what happened on July 4, 1776.
Mars was eclipsing Alhecke, Venus eclipsed Tejat Posterior and Jupiter was top of Nepsula.
The great Benjamin Franklin really knew what he was doing.
The Magi Society has just introduced MagiAstroSoft_Pro version 8.222 that offers an optional feature (View Eclipses for $90) - with this feature, you may view both Planetary Eclipses and Star Eclipses and of course the program identifies the stars (over 100 of the brightest and most important stars of Benjamin Franklin Astrology). The most unique capability of this feature is that it allows you to look at CACs for Planetary Eclipses formed between two persons, and for transiting Planetary Eclipses.
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