Eclipse also has relevance for astrologers

Credit: NurPhoto

Credit: NurPhoto

Monday’s total eclipse is a significant event for astronomers, but it also has relevance for astrologers.

On her website, astrologer Marjorie Orr said that several major history-altering events -- including the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- have occurred within a few months of solar eclipses.

She called Monday’s eclipse a “Saros Series 1 North” and claims that it “puts pressure on personal relationships.” She advises against hasty decisions, since information will be “distorted and possibly false.”

This particular type of eclipse also occurred in 1909, 1927, 1945, 1963, 1981 and 1999, Orr said.

The 1927 eclipse preceded Charles Lindbergh’s solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, Orr said. She also claimed that the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima took place four weeks after the 1945 eclipse.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech was delivered four weeks after the 1963 eclipse, and Kennedy was killed in Dallas three months later, Orr said.

In his 2001 book, "Eclipse: The Celestial Phenomenon that Changed the Course of History," space scientist Duncan Steel wrote that solar eclipses "have been interpreted as evil omens by many civilizations because the life-giving sunlight is obscured for a few minutes."

Steel wrote that accounts of the death of Jesus Christ depicted a so-called "crucifixion eclipse," and that the ancient Chinese would beat drums and shoot arrows into the sky to ward off what they believed was a dragon devouring the sun, Newsweek reported.

Whether one believes in astrology or not, its connection to eclipses still makes for interesting reading.

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