Welcome, new readers; follow-up about predicting death

For everyone finding their way to askchristine.wordpress.com for the first time – whether it’s via Lynn Hayes’ and Julie Demboski’s blogs, your own searches, Astrology News, or Astrology Blogger – welcome! Read, comment, browse, explore, enjoy!

I was fascinated to see the conversation that erupted after Lynn Hayes picked up the discussion about the ethics of predicting death from an astrological chart. It’s over here if you’d like to see – especially visit the comments section on that blog post.

The only time I’ve ever been asked directly about death was more than 10 years ago, when I was a modern astrologer. I was doing speed readings at a small, private party; the hostess gave me the birth data for all six of her guests ahead of time, and I met with each one privately for 15 minutes to talk about their charts and provide quick transit-based forecasts for the coming year. I remember one woman asking me point-blank, “I would like to know when and how I am going to die.” I was floored. I believe I gave her a non-fatalistic reply about how it’s not necessarily shown or set in stone, etc., but the truth is that I did NOT want to touch that question. Nowadays I don’t think modern astrology could even have provided her with an answer.

Here’s where I stand on it now, having forsaken modern astrology for the traditional perspective. I believe it is possible to predict death, possibly not to the date and time but certainly to a given season of a given year. I suspect it is possible to anticipate the likely cause of death, too. I don’t know how to do it – yet. I would like to know how it’s done.

Would I ever actually do it? Living in the litigation-happy United States, I probably would not. In an ideal world, I would like to believe that anyone who comes to me with a question they expect me to answer with astrology ought to be prepared to hear the answer. However, I have no idea what to do about self-fulfilling prophecies, or about those who let their own thoughts about the prediction cause them stress or grief. And I really don’t know what to do about clients who, given what they asked for (if not what they wanted to hear), sue anyway.

That said – I would definitely not volunteer information about a person’s death if they aren’t bringing up the topic themselves. I can’t imagine what’s going through the mind of the 21st century astrologer who would actually bring it up without the client’s requesting it. Warnings of danger, sure. But unsolicited information about the end of life? I don’t think we live in a time or a culture that supports having that knowledge.

What do you think? Have you ever been asked to talk about death – astrologically or otherwise?