Morality of Predicting Death?

I think only a truly experienced professional astrologer (like Alice) with a seriously good record of "practice" predictions-- not involving real people with real questions-- should engage in death prediction for clients. In other words, no.

There are multiple ways to predict death, and have been for centuries. It was a big preoccupation in ancient times, because people didn't live very long. In fact, astrologers might do a death prediction when a child was born, as there was no point in predicting the child's future if he would be claimed by the then-high rates of infant mortality.

Astrologers throughout the ages have had different methods of death prediction, and they don't all agree. The different methods lead to different answers.

Moreover, you have to look at basic demographics. The average American woman today will live into her 80s, based upon current life expectancy data. Yet the different death prediction methods, when summed up and applied to a large sample of charts, wouldn't show that over half of the American women today would live so long. Then most of these American women would be dead in their 90s just based on mortality rates-- a very compressed period for death prediction.

A similar cohort of women born in Afghanistan or AIDS-afflicted southern Africa today would show much more disparity in average death rates and life expectancy. Yet their birth data would be comparable to the Americans'.

You can't read death transparently off the 8th house.

Richard Houck published an entire book, The Astrology of Death. Unfortunately he got his own date of death too late by many years, as well misjudging his manner of death.

The problem is, you do see astrology learners frightening their friends with death predictions. Stuff like, "Your moon just progressed into your 8th house, so your mother is going to die."

Obviously the really good astrologers wouldn't write something like this, but they can inadvertently give encouragement to the wannabe seers, in implying that death prediction is a reasonable activity.

There are so many moral issues involving the power of suggestion. What if a poster or client is suicidal? I have seen one poster claim that an astrologer told her she would die by suicide!

What if a financially troubled son wants to know when his ageing Mummy is going to pop off, as he has power of attorney over her bank account and access to her credit card?

I have looked at a number of death and medical astrology charts. While I claim no expertise in traditional astrology (where this work began) with my intermediate level of modern astrology background, I don't think you can see why one person dies of an illness and another person recovers.

The argument is sometimes made that a death prediction will help a client get her affairs in order or say good-bye to loved ones. Well, shouldn't our papers always be in order, and shouldn't we always be in touch with people we love? We don't need an immanent death prediction to do this.

There is so much good and worthwhile astrology to practice that can help people, instead of frightening them.

Right-the estimation of potential life-critical times (which is the MOST I believe might be done by experts in this field) is for those who have a specialty in this area (or in the area of medical astrology), and such information must be handled with adroit diplomacy and mature judgement, by such expert practitioners.

Dr. Farr, I totally support the idea of warning people that their health might be especially sensitive at particular times. Or that they might be especially accident-prone. This is different than giving the finality of a death sentence.

For anyone who is at all religious in the J-C tradition, I might mention that the Bible actually doesn't say much about astrology (as opposed to soothsaying or prognostication more generally.) But the rationale is that a God who created the universe can easily overturn the predictions of "star-gazers," and that faith in God-- not faith in astrologers-- gets people through the difficult times (Isaiah 47:13.) We find a little of this in the catechism of the Catholic church ( item 2116)-- where some things or types of knowledge belong to God, not to fallible human beings.

I think very highly of Alice's expertise and compassion (she's my astro-hero) but I am concerned about giving legitimacy to a type of astrology that opens itself up to so much misuse and potential harm by the inexperienced, the badly-intended, or the just plain mistaken in calculations.

I think we also have to look at why astrologers would want this type of knowledge. If it is for a truly knowledgeable astrologer to genuinely help a select few people in distress, that's one thing. If it is for a Sorcerer's Apprentice type of person to feel like a magus or more important, then that is not a good reason.

PhoenixVenus: Think, too, if you give your terminally ill mother a death prediction and she lives two more years after that, just what have you accomplished in terms of your relationship? In terms of her comfort?

btw, here is the passage from the Catholic church's catechism. I am not now involved in any faith, let alone Catholic, and I do not view natal chart interpretation as forecasting the future. I am certainly not interested in conciliating "hidden powers"! Nevertheless, I take their point.

2116 "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone."

For the religious mind, perhaps some things are best left to God.

Marinka said:

I find the point about the life force interesting. Most of the deaths I have seen in charts and verified were a passing because of issues like a heart attack, cancers, or accidents and in those cases, the life force went all at once (or I assumed at the time this was the case). But, your statements open up the question of life force and what it is comprised of and I might surmise it might be a combination of the brain, body, and soul. With this, I might think there is more than one passing that occurs when a person dies although it would look like one if they were close enough in time. This begs the question of how a death by Alzheimer's would appear versus a death where the brain/body is kept alive to be able to harvest the organs for transplant.

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To inform the client that they need to take care of their health is not unethical - everyone has different morals so it's personal choice dependent on the wishes of the client - however it is imperative that the astrologer is well versed in these methods JMO

waybread said:

btw, here is the passage from the Catholic church's catechism. I am not now involved in any faith, let alone Catholic, and I do not view natal chart interpretation as forecasting the future. I am certainly not interested in conciliating "hidden powers"! Nevertheless, I take their point.

2116 "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone."

For the religious mind, perhaps some things are best left to God.

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My understanding (and it may be wrong and if so, feel free to correct me) is that ANY knowledge divined (divination) from using what they describe as supernatural means is to be rejected and that would include knowledge based from the natal chart.

With this in mind, there doesn't seem to be any safe footing for a catholic interested in astrology or like sciences.

Here is an interview with Catholic (and a convert!) astrologer John Frawley: http://www.astrologers.gr/index.php...8-john-frawley-the-horary-s-majesty-exclusive (Scroll about 3/5 of the way down.) Esentially he's saying that the idolatry part comes from interpreting planets as causing things in human lives. However, Frawley is probably most noted for his work in horary astrology which involves a lot of predictive work. Perhaps someone else here knows where he's at with the catechism.

I don't know when the Catholic church included this bit in the catechism. Not during a lot of its history, when Catholic universities in Italy and France offered astrology as a university subject.

Phoenix Venus, Grant Lewi a Moderne predicted his own death that very night.

http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Lewi,_Grant

And I want to share my mother had rising, with Apollo in in the 12H, with on the 8H, in on the 5H.

As William F. Lilly, Horary Master writes in CAIII, '... is typically in a woman's horoscope showing strong tendacy to breast cancer..'. Which Mother had, did the steps of Chemo therapy, then it came back in her lungs.

Her Libra 8th, my father being her husband, the only man she ever knew sacredly, her husband held her hand in the hospital as she left her body. her only Libra child was in the room, my sister.

So the horoscope told of her death!

And I personally wouldn't tell someone when, but I would tell them how if asked and the circumstances from various charts.


Clinton Garrett Soule

Wise men truly know how little they know

Psalm 19:1-4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork.
2 Day after day pours forth speech, and night after night shows forth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor spoken word [from the stars]; their voice is not heard.
4 Yet their voice [in evidence] goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the world. Of the heavens has God made a tent for the sun,

Clinton, I don't mean to disrespect your very moving family experience. However, millions of women get breast cancer every year with no moon in Cancer. There is also the question of why some women with late-stage breast cancer die from it while others recover.

We can't avoid the basic demography. I've mentioned the issue of very long life expectancies for women in the US (and in many parts of the developed world, notably Japan.) Did the planets somehow shift in the past century to predict that people today would, on average, be living longer, compared with the 17th century? Then what about the problem of people today with very similar horoscopes, yet some live in places with a lot of infant mortality.

What do we make of plane crashes, where hundreds of people die simultaneously, regardless of their birth charts or country of origin? Tsunamis that kill tens of thousands of people all at once? Sure, we could look at national charts. But many victims were born elsewhere (such as tourists) and a major tsunami can affect several different countries.

For every astrologer who got a death prediction right, we could equally point out to some major bloopers. Yet where a death prediction is involved, these aren't funny.

The anticipation of disasters (determining a trend toward a disaster) is akin to astro-meteorology, and is within the field of very advanced mundane astrology. There have really only been a very small number of accomplished adepts in this field, over the centuries.

Regarding Roman Catholic dogma, the current catechism relating to divination, flows from the last papal bull (I think it was in the 17th century) specifically dealing with astrology (and related endeavors) Essentially, all forms of divination, ie the attempted predicting of future events, by any methods (including astrology) were banned; natal horoscopy (determining of character and potentials of the individual), mundane astrology (analysis of the import, and causes behind, mundane events, but no predicting of future events), agricultural astrology (including weather forecasting, which verged very close to the banned field of predictions) and medical astrology (analysis of the influences and connections involved in health matters), were all "allowed": electional astrology, predicting forthcoming events in a persons (or a country's) life, and horary astrology, were banned. This papal bull is a major reason why Placidus, closely involved with the R.C. Church during this time, while supporting natal (and medical and agricultural) astrology, denounced horary astrology as "fraudulent and an excess" (since horary particularly is involved in predicting the future, future events, future outcomes)-some (see Anthony Louis horary book for references) say that the reason Lilly did not accept the Placidus house system, but instead continued with Regiomontanus, is because of Placidus explicit denunciation of horary astrology, which of course was the branch of astrology Lilly was most involved with...

waybread said:

2116 "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone."

For the religious mind, perhaps some things are best left to God.

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I have had this argument with Catholics a few times. The thing is, the mind-set you have quoted above could apply to medicine and physics as well as many other sciences and forms of knowledge! For some reason the Catholic Church has a hatred of the above wisdoms and I think it is because they usually tell the truth - and this religion (and many others) does not.

Consider that most of our experiences on Earth are timed very accurately and appropriately by astrology and by palmistry and omens have been with the human race since time began. For example, we have church ravens where I live; many years ago they spend weeks following me around crowing and I didn't know why. Clients still have tapes with their incessant sound in the background. When the great fires that burnt between Adelaide and Melbourne and decimated that whole area occurred, the ravens stopped crowing and I realized this is what they were trying to tell me. If I have received training in my inherit skills, I would have known what they were desperately trying to tell me and maybe would have been able to do something about it. If the knowledge of the Druids hadn't been derided and destroyed by the Roman and Catholic civilizations, the whole area might have been saved.

We have been given recondite knowledge to help us understand that we are all part of the great flow of life on Earth, we all have our purpose and much of our life experiences can be timed to a great level of accuracy. To deny people this is to enslave them - something in which the Roman Catholic Church has proven to be very skilled.

This doesn't mean greater powers can intervene - they can and do! I have seen many miracles and amazing things in my life and know that almost everyone can spiritually ask for help and get it. I think we are beloved by the Universe and only God knows why!

all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings,

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Nonsense! There speaks the mind of a religion that has desired and implemented just that and therefore sees its own faults in other forms of knowledge.

Most astrologers and palmists, mediums and clairvoyants don't desire power over others, most are in their professions to actually help people, and most do - usually far, far more than their religion has done.

Alice

Waybread stated:

Clinton, I don't mean to disrespect your very moving family experience. However, millions of women get breast cancer every year with no moon in Cancer. There is also the question of why some women with late-stage breast cancer die from it while others recover.

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Waybread in no way were you being disrespectful, I was just pointing out what Lilly said and it exactly correlated with what happened to my mother. And though I and most after they study Lilly find him to be so awesome, yet I disagree with some of his natal data and use the Modernes quite a bit in natal astrology.

Waybread states:

We can't avoid the basic demography. I've mentioned the issue of very long life expectancies for women in the US (and in many parts of the developed world, notably Japan.) Did the planets somehow shift in the past century to predict that people today would, on average, be living longer, compared with the 17th century?

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Well we know that pollution from our technology and radiation from atomic blasts have changed the eco-system. And if the Mayan calender is in anyway correct maybe we are in the 29th degree 59 minutes and some odd seconds of the Age of Aquariuswhere Chronor is showing his influence.

All of these Ancient writtings of astrologers and Lilly are their experience and oppinions, some have a few flaws as Lilly noted, just like if one studies the Bible you will spot a few flaws or mistranslations that others have taken the words out of context like King Davidsun: with ASC) saying '...he was born in sin...'. As I understand David is the last child, Jesse's son, so was his mother fooling around? Could be why the Rosicrucian Fellowship and the Shakers had such strange oppinions about sexuality!

Waybread:

What do we make of plane crashes, where hundreds of people die simultaneously, regardless of their birth charts or country of origin?

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Waybread, we know that have studied diligently, that the 8H is death, the 4th our Old Age, our life after our 2nd Kronus return, the Funeral. Just as Grant Lewi predicted his death, many know from our maps how we will die, and Lilly through his study of the Ancients could and did predict death and the types of death.


Clinton Garrett Soule

Wise men truly know how little they know

Matthew 2:1-12 Wycliffe Bible (WYC)


1 Therefore when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of king Herod, lo! astrologers [lo! kings, or wise men,] came from the east to Jerusalem,
2 and said [saying], Where is he, that is born [the] king of Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and we have come to worship him.
3 But king Herod heard, and was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And he gathered together all the princes of priests, and scribes of the people, and inquired of them, where Christ should be born.
5 And they said to him, In Bethlehem of Juda; for so it is written by a prophet,
6 And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda; for of thee a duke shall go out, that shall govern my people Israel.
7 Then Herod called privily the astrologers [the kings], and learned busily of them [busily learned of them] the time of the star that appeared to them.
8 And he sent them into Bethlehem, and said, Go ye, and ask ye busily of the child, and when ye have found, tell ye it to me [tell again to me], that I also come, and worship him.
9 And when they had heard the king, they went forth [went away]. And lo! the star, that they saw in the east [And lo! the star which they saw in the east], went before them, till it came, and stood above, where the child was.
10 And they saw the star, and joyed with a full great joy.
11 And they entered into the house, and found the child with Mary, his mother; and they felled down, and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they offered to him gifts, gold, incense, and myrrh.
12 And when they had taken an answer in sleep, that they should not turn again to Herod, they turned again by another way into their [own] country.[a]

As Sidney Omarr wrote '...if the astrologers in Matthew had been followers of Satan rather than of God why did they not turn in the child's where abouts to the evil King Herod?'

Dr. Farr stated:

Regarding Roman Catholic dogma, the current catechism relating to divination, flows from the last papal bull (I think it was in the 17th century) specifically dealing with astrology (and related endeavors) Essentially, all forms of divination, ie the attempted predicting of future events, by any methods (including astrology) were banned; natal horoscopy (determining of character and potentials of the individual), mundane astrology (analysis of the import, and causes behind, mundane events, but no predicting of future events), agricultural astrology (including weather forecasting, which verged very close to the banned field of predictions)....

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I'm not quite certain even if I took a very extensive course in English history, but even with the Church Henry VIII started, as I understand Lilly was practicing astrology even if illegal in England's laws and after he predicted the Fire of London in 1666 and was brought before Parliament and not only was he allowed to continue practicing horary but Parliament circulated his phamphets to it's members.

As far as the R.C. Church, they apparently just wanted the control for their own empire as the Vatican has the world's largest collection of astrology books next to the American Federation of Astrologers in Tempe, Az.

So yes Dr. Farr I understand very well what various religious leaders have done to suppress astrologers, and espeacialy horary astrologers.


Clinton Garrett Soule

Wise men truly know how little they know

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;" (King James Version)

http://www.newsreview.com/reno/star-...tent?oid=22904

Clinton, if you go back to the original Greek and Latin of the Star of Bethlehem verses, it may or may not peg the "wise men" as astrologers. They were called "magoi" or "magi"-- the same root as our word "magician." While the passage is cryptic, it is tantalizing to think that the author of Matthew believed that astrology was sufficiently current in his day and time that it would be beneficial to insert some omen-readings into his text. This narrative does not appear elsewhere in the NT. The idea that we can somehow fix the horoscope of King David is just not on.

I am not sure what this has to do with death prediction in astrology today.

Yes, the 8th is the traditional house of death. But I would challenge you to take a large random sample of horoscopes for decreased people, and show how the time and manner of death can be read directly and clearly off the 8th house.

Then are we to assume that if 200 people all die simultaneously in a plane crash that their 8th houses would have looked identical? If 200,000 people die in a tsunami?

Even in ancient times astrologers developed complicated calculations for predicting the length of life. Unfortunately these methods were not identical.

Some astrologers have correctly predicted death, but others have failed miserably. I gave the Richard Houck example above. C.E.O. Carter predicted WW II would never happen, yet millions died in it.

My personal feeling is that some astrologers are psychic. If we cannot make that claim personally, I think we had better leave death prediction alone.

In Tarot I use this rule:

Never do a reading for someone who hasn't requested a reading or do a question that relates to someone else who isn't there. It's only for the person who asked the question. If the person wants the question to be answered for him/herself, then it's okay. That's based on Free Will.

Waybread states:

Clinton, if you go back to the original Greek and Latin of the Star of Bethlehem verses, it may or may not peg the "wise men" as astrologers. They were called "magoi" or "magi"-- the same root as our word "magician." While the passage is cryptic, it is tantalizing to think that the author of Matthew believed that astrology was sufficiently current in his day and time that it would be beneficial to insert some omen-readings into his text. This narrative does not appear elsewhere in the NT. The idea that we can somehow fix the horoscope of King David is just not on.

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Waybread I added the boldness for emphasis for others to catch easily.

http://theword.donconrad.net/?p=882

Herod the Great was quite disturbed when the astrologers asked about a newborn king of the Jews because (1) Herod was not the rightful heir to the throne of David; therefore, many Jews hated him as a usurper.

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Astrologers appears all through the web document about the wise men!


If one goes to www.biblegateway.com one may find in Matthew 2:1-12 in several translations the term Astrologers.

1. Matthew 2:1
   
   • Expanded Bible
     [ Wise Men Come to Visit Jesus ] ·When [After] Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea during the time when Herod was king, some ·wise men [astrologers; magi; C a class of wise men and priests who practiced astrology] from the east came to Jerusalem.
     Matthew 2:1-3 (in Context)

Waybread said:

The idea that we can somehow fix the horoscope of King David is just not on.

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Waybread, are you going to tell me, when I was in the American Federation of Astrologers office years ago, and I read the document and saw the horoscope of King David that the document is a hoax? And I emailed the lady I talked to years ago from another email server of which I do Not have now but I'm certain they would be more than happy to show you the document?

And as far as people dying in plane crashes together don't you imagine their horoscopes have it within just as when the astrologer of Carol Lombard told her about aspects to Uranus in her transits or progressed chart said WARNING! Or when Jeane Dixon and many astrologers hammered messages to the white house about JFK's possible death!

If we fail in prediction is it not our ignorance as astrologers of methods for God's sky is perfect?


Clinton Garrett Soule

Wise men truly know how little they know

Psalm 19:1-4

Amplified Bible (AMP)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork.
2 Day after day pours forth speech, and night after night shows forth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor spoken word [from the stars]; their voice is not heard.
4 Yet their voice [in evidence] goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the world. Of the heavens has God made a tent for the sun,

Clinton Soule said:

And as far as people dying in plane crashes together don't you imagine their horoscopes have it within?....

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Exactly
Here's a comment I made on a similar thread

JUPITERASC said:

That's easy to say. HOWEVER, since ninety thousand people perished in Hiroshima and approximately seventy four thousand people died in Nagasaki then that is a combined total of one hundred and sixty four thousand natal charts to analyze - including verification of time of birth. Clearly then a belief or disbelief that 'each of these victim's alcocodens and hylegs got simultaneously activated' is neither provable nor disprovable. That's because no one has delineated every single one of all of those one hundred and sixty four thousand charts

Clearly, all these people DID have one thing in common i.e. THEY WERE ALL LOCATED IN A CITY ON WHICH AN ATOMIC BOMB WAS DROPPED.

An important factor to note is that, some survived

Astrologers who have looked at the charts of survivors of large scale disasters such as plane crashes, explosions and so on have found chart patterns indicating that they had 'above average good fortune' - there were of course survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima as well as of Nagasaki and if anyone has any research material regarding any studies of their natal charts that would be relevant

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Olivia said:

And that is the key right there, not analysing 90,000 charts for hylegs, alchocodens, primary directions that could have prematurely cut the alchocodens' years short, etc. etc.

Taking a page from Avraham the Spaniard, otherwise known as ibn Ezra, one of the first things he tells astrologers is that astrology does not contravene natural law. He also explains that a personal chart falls under quite a hierarchy of other considerations. From Nativities and Revolutions:

...The third way is the rule that comes from the effect of the Great Conjunction on each country. Thus, if within the influence of the Conjunction upon the nations war is supposed to befall a certain nation,

even if many of those born in it do not have an indication of death by the sword in their nativities, when the time for war for that country comes, they will all be killed....

There's quite a lot more, but no need to quote all of it, one hopes.

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Re: people dying in large scale disasters of various kinds.

I was in a cyclone where the whole city was destroyed but only 52 people killed; my daughter was one these people. Her chart and those of her whole family, grandparents and uncles included, clearly showed her death.

As a result I became interested in collecting the charts of people who died in disasters and those of their families. As you can imagine, finding the birth times of many of these people was impossible, but for the very few I could, their charts and those of members of their families, did show their deaths.

From this, I can only postulate that if people are 'destined' to die in a mass disaster of some kind their chart will tell the story. We won't really know until all birth times are recorded but from the tiny little bit of research I have done, this seems possible.

For those who fear death, this appeared on my Facebook page: http://www.dailygood.org/story/452/the-night-i-died-tracy-cochran/ words are really inadequate to describe this experience, but it correlates with some of my own experiences.

Alice

Clinton, I am happy to discuss the Bible with you, but it would seem like a real hijack of this thread. I am not sure what the Magi of the NT (today, usually understood as Zoroastrian Persians) have to do with death prediction-- the topic of this thread.

If you believe in the Bible, you can get into all kinds of difficulties with this one, as it was a Hellenistic, not Hebrew belief (so far as I know) that the Zoroastrians were astrologers. However, the Greeks viewed them with considerable suspicion, and it from them we get the double meaning of magus/magician: someone versed in occult practices-- which may or may not be beneficent.

You have been citing English translations of the original Greek. I could point to widely used translations that don't say "astrologers." The Greek term is "Magoi"; Magi in Latin. This is where we need to look.

No doubt someone constructed a horoscope for King David and sincerely believed it to be correct. The notion that we could know the birth date of a tribal leader who lived roughly 3000 to 2800 years ago is not believeable, however. There is a big debate amongst biblical archaeologists currently as to when David might have lived, because the biblical accounts and what is on the ground (or excavated under the ground) do not concur. The Biblical Archaeologist magazine carries some of this debate.

Clinton, we cannot believe all of the predictions of popular psychics. Many of their predictions are incorrect, notably some of Jeanne Dixon's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeane_Dixon .

I don't debate whether "God's sky is perfect." My questions, rather, are whether imperfect astrologers can predict death and whether imperfect astrologers should predict death.

Alice, you know I think very highly of your work, but I fear that death prediction is one area where we might need to "agree to disagree." This is not a reflection on the accuracy of your correct predictions. And the tragic death of your daughter, in particular. I believe you have some rare and highly honed abilities. To me, they seem beyond what can be read off a natal chart, but then I am an amateur (comment deletion by moderator) not a professional of many decades' standing.

In the spirit of an open, and reasoned debate, I revisited your website article on death prediction just now.
http://aliceportman.com/determining-death-from-a-horoscope/

It raises some questions in my mind. If death can be predicted from "a combination of some of the following factors," and there are many factors (!) in your list with possibly hundreds of possible combinations in permutations, then I am not sure how the typical amateur astrologer could confidently select just the right factors the manner and time of death.

It narrows the field down a bit to say "at least one" from "Column A", one from Column B, and so on, but the major headings are still numerous:

It is one thing to do a post-mortem on a celebrity death chart, because we don't have to guess which of the factors will be activated. Predicting in advance when granny is going to die seems to involve a whole other level of intuition. By this I mean, at a minimum, the ability to see patterns out of hundreds of data points as the horoscope moves through time.

Some of the factors you cite involve getting the house cusps right. Assuming we have a spot-on accurate birth time, do we use Placidus, Koch, equal house, or Regiomontanus? If we use a quadrant house system, does it matter whether the person had such a high-latitude birth that the house cusps are seriously skewed? (I. e., for people born in Scotland, Scandinavia, parts of the former USSR, Alaska, &c.)

In using house rulers, do we use the traditional ruler, modern ruler or both? Mightn't they give different signals?

What does it mean for the ascendant to "be activated"? Transit? By a planet or do major asteroids, BML, &tc. count. By conjunction or major aspect? Minor aspect? If by progression: secondary, tertiary, solar arc, &c?

I wonder, too, whether people normally have all kinds of moments in their lives that meet your criteria, yet they don't die at those times. Quincunxes by transit are fairly common. So are planets toodling along through the fourth and 8th houses.

Then if we take the hypothetical example of 200 people dying simultaneously in a plane crash, we may be able to mix-and-match your various potential criteria. If we assume they might be different for each victim, it still doesn't give us much to go on for predicting the death of someone in the future.

I am not suggesting that you couldn't do a decent death prediction because I have no reason to doubt your veracity.

I wouldn't give anyone a death prediction based on your article, however, because I wouldn't trust my ability to forecast into the future based on your large number of potential criteria.

I have no problem with people looking at a death chart for a deceased person.

I have been doing some experimentation with diasaster charts, and-in the case of the Newtown massacre-with the natal charts (albeit noon charts) of the victims (25 victims for which date and place of birth were available, out of a total of 26 victims)
With the Sandy Hook victims charts, since they were noon charts I excluded house considerations, and also consideration of the Moon, and took sign and planet (and Node and Lilith) positions, and subjected these to:
-symbolic directions (one degree, duodenary, novenary and septenary directions)
-Pauline profections
-conjunctional transits (if present)
...to the date of the murders.
I then added up:
-as +, all benefic directional aspects, profection connections and benefic transit conjunctions (orbs for all of these were under 2 degrees from perfection)
-as -, all disruptive directional aspects, profection connections and disruptive transit conjunctions (ditto above re to orbs)
...doing this for each of the 25 viictims. What I found striking, is that NONE of the victims had a net + total (of the factors considered as outlined above) for the day of their death. ALL victims each had a - totality, although this - totality varied, from a net -1, to a much higher - net number, among the victims.
Now, this does not prove anything, because its only from 1 disaster and involves too small a number of victims (only 25). However, these results have encouraged me in thinking that MAYBE, in diasasters (fatal outcomes), ALL of the victims perhaps share a net negative totality of directional (or progressed) + profection + transit factors, for the time of their involvement in that fatal disaster.
Obviously this is only a hypothesis, and over time I'll have to test whether the net results of victims of other disasters support it (as the results of the analysis of the Newtown massacre victims charts, supported it)...