I am not going to give details of this event because they seem to be adequately laid out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bamber. The author relies heavily upon the court record of Bamber's Appeal of 2002, and these details are available elsewhere. Neither am I entering into the debate about Bamber's guilt or innocence. Furthermore, I should preface my remarks by saying that most of the information I have comes from media reports which could be inaccurate.
The media have recently reported new evidence, one piece of which being a call logged by police on the night of the murders which wasn't presented to the jury in the original case and which was unknown to defence counsel. The documentary evidence has been published which details a call made by Nevill (sic) Bamber, the accused's father, to the police; in it Nevill says that his daughter had one of his guns and had "gone berserk". As far as I know, there has been no official confirmation of the veracity of this new evidence. However, having looked at the court record, it does appear that two separate calls may have been conflated by the court if not by the police. The second call, ten minutes later, was from Jeremy Bamber himself reporting a call from his father giving the same information that his sister, Sheila, had "gone crazy" with a gun. It appears that Jeremy Bamber was unaware of his father's call to the police. The following chart is supposedly for the first call to the police made by Nevill Bamber who subsequently became a victim of the shootings. Does this moment bear any relation to what we know happened that night? If it does, then does it show that it could have been the daughter, diagnosed as schizophrenic, who carried out these killings rather than the son?
One point which caught my attention was that during dinner the previous evening, Sheila's parents suggested to her that the twins were put into foster care. This had been done before when Sheila was in hospital, although the children had been living with their father, too, so it is difficult to know what the situation actually was. Jeremy Bamber's version states that Sheila responded simply and quietly that she preferred London.
As is usually the case in chart judgement, I will use both natural and accidental significators. The former are often overlooked as anything other than subsidiary, but natural significators often have as much to say as do the accidentals. So, although it might appear that I am jumping back and forth, I am simply following a path and double-checking my route. It is also true to say that in some cases, and this is one, accidental significators can be a hindrance: there were three generations at the farm that night which can cause problems in identification. Both Jeremy and Sheila had been adopted by the Bambers which means that a 5th house connection is unclear since, necessarily, the parents did not give birth to the children. The 5th house does not signify all children, but only the children of the querent or 1st house.
To begin with both the day and hour are ruled by Mars, the ruler of violence, murder and explosive action; Mars is combust of the Sun in Leo, and hot and dry sign. Thus we have our first argument of violence. The Moon is angular and disposited by Mars providing our second argument of violence; it is angular so the violence is extreme and, in the 10th, it will be notable. This does not tell us who was being violent, but more of that later. Nevill Bamber told the police that his daughter had "gone berserk" and we can find a classic argument of insanity (acute or chronic) by Mercury's combustion. Mercury is the natural ruler of the brain and is here 'overheated', retrograde and peregrine; that it is also in a fixed sign suggests to me that this is a chronic condition and that something like this has happened before, particularly because Mercury is retrograde.
Having called attention to the very choleric trio of planets in Leo – by nature or by association – we can see that the Moon is also highlighting them through aspect and dispositorship. The Moon is indicating that the situation is coming to a close as it draws near to the end of the sign of Aries. Although in a hot and dry sign, its phase is cold and dry, also known as Melancholic, which is a temperament associated with brooding, depression and long memory. It seems to me that this combination of planetary natures and configurations is rather vengeful and irrational, but this is hardly surprising given the nature of the event.
Saturn signifies the father in a night time chart, so let's look at it and see what can be deduced. Saturn is very poorly placed in Scorpio, thus it becomes more malefic through that weakness. It receives aspects by square from both Mercury and the Sun, the former has only just begun to separate, but before moving on to that, this configuration offers a description of the father which is unpleasant. It seems to bear out the descriptions found elsewhere of his having been domineering and controlling. Saturn is below the horizon and Mr. Bamber's body was found downstairs in the kitchen.
Mercury is the natural significator of children and young people; it mutually applies to combustion and separates from the square (in signs of long ascension and so equivalent to a trine) with Saturn, and the Moon separates from the trine. Based on this, I suggest that it was the deaths of the twin boys which woke Mr. and Mrs. Bamber - the rifle had a 'silencer' attached, but it still makes a noise. I suggest that it was at that point that Mr. Bamber, horrified as he must have been, tried to control the situation in his habitual manner and that it was this which opened the floodgates for the person holding the gun. From the various reports, the twins appear to have been shot several times at close range in their sleep, hence the trines: their deaths were fast and painless. In contrast, the deaths of the parents, particularly the father, were bloody and excessively violent.
The Moon signifies the mother in a night time chart and with my previous comments in mind, it might be valuable to note that she, too, had a history of mental illness. The Moon separates from its trine with Mercury, perhaps woken by voices and then made aware of the deaths of the twins. Moon in Aries is loud, hasty and prone to panic, and to an agitated person with a gun this, too, could have precipitated an extreme reaction. The Moon in the 10th applies widely to a weak Venus in Cancer which perfects when the Moon has changed signs. Mrs. Bamber's body was found near the door of her bedroom upstairs. Venus in Cancer describes an attractive, if vacillating, emotional woman disturbed by the approach of the aggressive Moon.
This would have been the best moment for Mr. Bamber to have made his way downstairs to the telephone, but he may already have been wounded. Forensic scientists had not been able decide in which order the victims had died, so were unlikely to know which wounds were inflicted first. However, much was made by the Prosecution of Mr. Bamber's height, build and health arguing that Sheila, a slightly built young woman, could not have overwhelmed him in what appeared to have been a violent struggle in the kitchen.
Before moving on to the accidental significators, I want to mention the most prominent configuration of Mars opposition Jupiter. This is not to ignore the Sun's opposition to Jupiter, but that of Mars is mutually applying and thus more violent. It describes excessive, impassioned and exaggerated violence, with Mars's combustion we see this condition inflamed. It also speaks of fervent religious belief. The Bambers were known to have been devout Christians and there was some concern by the father of the twins that this was being imposed upon his children. Mrs. Bamber's religious beliefs were described as "obsessive" and possibly linked to her mental illness. Sheila Bamber had spoken in religious terms when she was taken into hospital and this often centred upon the twins as "devil's children".
In terms of the accidental significators, we might accept the Moon, ruler of the Cancer Ascendant, as significant of Mr. Bamber and Saturn, ruler of the 7th, for his wife. Keeping in mind that at this point Mr. Bamber was supposedly on the telephone to the police, we see that his next event is the sextile with Venus which has already been described. That it is moving into late degrees indicates that he is running out of time and perhaps had delayed involving the police making them useless to him. Saturn is the natural ruler of death and the accidental ruler of death, thus Mrs. Bamber identifies with that idea and I believe that she died before her husband. Saturn afflicts the rising degree even though by trine and therefore kills Mr. Bamber. I suggest that as the Moon separates from its square to the Ascendant and 7th, that the killer had to try several times before succeeding in killing both Mr. and Mrs. Bamber.
We could take the Moon as significant of both mother and father because the telephone call was hardly made solely for his own benefit and may also include the twins. We find them all running into Venus. We may wonder how peaceful, benefic Venus could be the source of such mayhem: it is conjunct a star of the third magnitude, so not usually of much bother, but its name is Al Dirah which means, according to Robson, the Seed or Branch and symbolically called the Abused or Beaten One. It is of the nature of Mercury and Venus which maintains the feminine flavour.
According to reports, the killer had to have been one or other of the adopted children: Sheila or Jeremy. The 11th house is most frequently given to adopted children and my source for that is Ptolemy in "Tetrabiblos". The radical 11th has feminine Taurus on its cusp ruled by Venus in feminine Cancer lurking in the 12th house. The 12th house is associated with self-harm and as there are no other planets affecting it, we might conclude suicide with regard to Sheila.
That's what this particular chart suggests to me, it's a difficult chart and not at all obvious, although you may think differently.
The media have recently reported new evidence, one piece of which being a call logged by police on the night of the murders which wasn't presented to the jury in the original case and which was unknown to defence counsel. The documentary evidence has been published which details a call made by Nevill (sic) Bamber, the accused's father, to the police; in it Nevill says that his daughter had one of his guns and had "gone berserk". As far as I know, there has been no official confirmation of the veracity of this new evidence. However, having looked at the court record, it does appear that two separate calls may have been conflated by the court if not by the police. The second call, ten minutes later, was from Jeremy Bamber himself reporting a call from his father giving the same information that his sister, Sheila, had "gone crazy" with a gun. It appears that Jeremy Bamber was unaware of his father's call to the police. The following chart is supposedly for the first call to the police made by Nevill Bamber who subsequently became a victim of the shootings. Does this moment bear any relation to what we know happened that night? If it does, then does it show that it could have been the daughter, diagnosed as schizophrenic, who carried out these killings rather than the son?
One point which caught my attention was that during dinner the previous evening, Sheila's parents suggested to her that the twins were put into foster care. This had been done before when Sheila was in hospital, although the children had been living with their father, too, so it is difficult to know what the situation actually was. Jeremy Bamber's version states that Sheila responded simply and quietly that she preferred London.
As is usually the case in chart judgement, I will use both natural and accidental significators. The former are often overlooked as anything other than subsidiary, but natural significators often have as much to say as do the accidentals. So, although it might appear that I am jumping back and forth, I am simply following a path and double-checking my route. It is also true to say that in some cases, and this is one, accidental significators can be a hindrance: there were three generations at the farm that night which can cause problems in identification. Both Jeremy and Sheila had been adopted by the Bambers which means that a 5th house connection is unclear since, necessarily, the parents did not give birth to the children. The 5th house does not signify all children, but only the children of the querent or 1st house.
To begin with both the day and hour are ruled by Mars, the ruler of violence, murder and explosive action; Mars is combust of the Sun in Leo, and hot and dry sign. Thus we have our first argument of violence. The Moon is angular and disposited by Mars providing our second argument of violence; it is angular so the violence is extreme and, in the 10th, it will be notable. This does not tell us who was being violent, but more of that later. Nevill Bamber told the police that his daughter had "gone berserk" and we can find a classic argument of insanity (acute or chronic) by Mercury's combustion. Mercury is the natural ruler of the brain and is here 'overheated', retrograde and peregrine; that it is also in a fixed sign suggests to me that this is a chronic condition and that something like this has happened before, particularly because Mercury is retrograde.
Having called attention to the very choleric trio of planets in Leo – by nature or by association – we can see that the Moon is also highlighting them through aspect and dispositorship. The Moon is indicating that the situation is coming to a close as it draws near to the end of the sign of Aries. Although in a hot and dry sign, its phase is cold and dry, also known as Melancholic, which is a temperament associated with brooding, depression and long memory. It seems to me that this combination of planetary natures and configurations is rather vengeful and irrational, but this is hardly surprising given the nature of the event.
Saturn signifies the father in a night time chart, so let's look at it and see what can be deduced. Saturn is very poorly placed in Scorpio, thus it becomes more malefic through that weakness. It receives aspects by square from both Mercury and the Sun, the former has only just begun to separate, but before moving on to that, this configuration offers a description of the father which is unpleasant. It seems to bear out the descriptions found elsewhere of his having been domineering and controlling. Saturn is below the horizon and Mr. Bamber's body was found downstairs in the kitchen.
Mercury is the natural significator of children and young people; it mutually applies to combustion and separates from the square (in signs of long ascension and so equivalent to a trine) with Saturn, and the Moon separates from the trine. Based on this, I suggest that it was the deaths of the twin boys which woke Mr. and Mrs. Bamber - the rifle had a 'silencer' attached, but it still makes a noise. I suggest that it was at that point that Mr. Bamber, horrified as he must have been, tried to control the situation in his habitual manner and that it was this which opened the floodgates for the person holding the gun. From the various reports, the twins appear to have been shot several times at close range in their sleep, hence the trines: their deaths were fast and painless. In contrast, the deaths of the parents, particularly the father, were bloody and excessively violent.
The Moon signifies the mother in a night time chart and with my previous comments in mind, it might be valuable to note that she, too, had a history of mental illness. The Moon separates from its trine with Mercury, perhaps woken by voices and then made aware of the deaths of the twins. Moon in Aries is loud, hasty and prone to panic, and to an agitated person with a gun this, too, could have precipitated an extreme reaction. The Moon in the 10th applies widely to a weak Venus in Cancer which perfects when the Moon has changed signs. Mrs. Bamber's body was found near the door of her bedroom upstairs. Venus in Cancer describes an attractive, if vacillating, emotional woman disturbed by the approach of the aggressive Moon.
This would have been the best moment for Mr. Bamber to have made his way downstairs to the telephone, but he may already have been wounded. Forensic scientists had not been able decide in which order the victims had died, so were unlikely to know which wounds were inflicted first. However, much was made by the Prosecution of Mr. Bamber's height, build and health arguing that Sheila, a slightly built young woman, could not have overwhelmed him in what appeared to have been a violent struggle in the kitchen.
Before moving on to the accidental significators, I want to mention the most prominent configuration of Mars opposition Jupiter. This is not to ignore the Sun's opposition to Jupiter, but that of Mars is mutually applying and thus more violent. It describes excessive, impassioned and exaggerated violence, with Mars's combustion we see this condition inflamed. It also speaks of fervent religious belief. The Bambers were known to have been devout Christians and there was some concern by the father of the twins that this was being imposed upon his children. Mrs. Bamber's religious beliefs were described as "obsessive" and possibly linked to her mental illness. Sheila Bamber had spoken in religious terms when she was taken into hospital and this often centred upon the twins as "devil's children".
In terms of the accidental significators, we might accept the Moon, ruler of the Cancer Ascendant, as significant of Mr. Bamber and Saturn, ruler of the 7th, for his wife. Keeping in mind that at this point Mr. Bamber was supposedly on the telephone to the police, we see that his next event is the sextile with Venus which has already been described. That it is moving into late degrees indicates that he is running out of time and perhaps had delayed involving the police making them useless to him. Saturn is the natural ruler of death and the accidental ruler of death, thus Mrs. Bamber identifies with that idea and I believe that she died before her husband. Saturn afflicts the rising degree even though by trine and therefore kills Mr. Bamber. I suggest that as the Moon separates from its square to the Ascendant and 7th, that the killer had to try several times before succeeding in killing both Mr. and Mrs. Bamber.
We could take the Moon as significant of both mother and father because the telephone call was hardly made solely for his own benefit and may also include the twins. We find them all running into Venus. We may wonder how peaceful, benefic Venus could be the source of such mayhem: it is conjunct a star of the third magnitude, so not usually of much bother, but its name is Al Dirah which means, according to Robson, the Seed or Branch and symbolically called the Abused or Beaten One. It is of the nature of Mercury and Venus which maintains the feminine flavour.
According to reports, the killer had to have been one or other of the adopted children: Sheila or Jeremy. The 11th house is most frequently given to adopted children and my source for that is Ptolemy in "Tetrabiblos". The radical 11th has feminine Taurus on its cusp ruled by Venus in feminine Cancer lurking in the 12th house. The 12th house is associated with self-harm and as there are no other planets affecting it, we might conclude suicide with regard to Sheila.
That's what this particular chart suggests to me, it's a difficult chart and not at all obvious, although you may think differently.
Dear Sue,
ReplyDeletethank you for sharing this very interesting chart with us. As you are mentioning fixed stars, there are some more interesting connections to be found, corroborating your findings.
Mercury is conjunct Ras Elased Australis, which is linked to depression, supporting a connection with the daughter.
Furthermore with Mars being combust and the Sun conjunct Dubhe, this fixed star, of the nature of Mars and being linked to violence and destructive energies, is another matching fact.
Last but not least Saturn is conjunct Unukalhai, of the nature of Saturn and Mars, an unlucky star, suggesting violence.
Although a complicated chart it is very descriptive of the account and its participants.
That's very interesting and does add some support. But I still find this chart less than satisfying astrologically.
ReplyDeleteOne could hardly say that Mercury was combust the Sun it was several degrees away.. This chart is unsatisfactory - the birthdates of Sheila Caffell & her adopted brother really are required to get a clearer picture of why this tragedy took place. Mrs Bamber Senior's chart would also reveal some hidden angst I believe.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous
ReplyDeleteCombustion occurs when a planet is within 8.5 degrees of the Sun whilst in the same sign. Mercury is therefore combust in this chart.
The nativities might well give added information, perhaps even better information, but without them neither of is likely to know.
Have you actually got any information?
Hi nicely maintained site and a lot of content to read.
ReplyDelete