The Strange Fate of George W. Bush
Prophetic stories concerning the fate of the United States Presidents have circulated amongst astrologers for decades. Ultimately these stories land upon the Presidency of George W. Bush, revealing a most unusual destiny. The astrological lore describes President Bush as the most fated of any American President, for his life is enmeshed in a web of karma that began when this country was founded.

His destiny and fate appear to be a fabric woven together by three compelling stories that intersected and sprang to life when he became President of the United States. The first of these stories describes a remarkable historical pattern.

The Jupiter/Saturn Presidential Cycle
Since 1840 the United States President elected to office every twenty years has died in office, with the exception of Ronald Reagan. Seven Presidents have died in this cycle, and the majority by assassination. Astrologers have noticed a fascinating astrological correlation to this pattern which includes the reason why Ronald Reagan survived.
Every twenty years Jupiter and Saturn conjoin. Their conjunction has coincided with the elections of U.S. Presidents. In astrological parlance, Jupiter and Saturn describe the social, political, cultural, and economic patterns on Earth, and when they conjoin every 20 years a new pattern begins.

Since 1840 Jupiter and Saturn have conjoined in an Earth Sign with the exception of 1980 when they conjoined in an Air Sign. And every twenty years when they have conjoined in an Earth Sign, the President who was elected has died in office. Earth Signs have rulership over the material world and the physical body. President Reagan, who was elected under the Air Sign conjunction in 1980, was shot but his body survived. However, due to of the onset of Alzheimer’s, President Reagan’s mind began to deteriorate while he was in office. The Air Signs rule
the mind.

In the year 2000 Jupiter and Saturn conjoined for the last time in an Earth Sign. If this 20-year cycle holds true, as it has since 1840, the U.S. President elected in 2000 would die in office. Of the seven Presidents who have died in this cycle, only two have survived into their next term - Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who each lived one year into their next term. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were men of great personal power who safely guided America through a cataclysmic 4-year war (perhaps the greatest crises in America’s history – the Civil War and World War II).

Is George W. Bush in the same league with Honest Abe and FDR, and could survive into his next term as they did? In the year 2020 and beyond for decades to come, Jupiter and Saturn will conjoin in Air Signs. The astrological cycle related to the Presidents dying in office completes with the Presidency of George W. Bush.

William Henry Harrison was the first U.S. President to die in office, and his Presidency started the Jupiter/Saturn cycle when he was elected in 1840. Harrison lasted just one month as President, dying of pneumonia. Abraham Lincoln, elected President in 1860, was assassinated in 1865 by a Confederate sympathizer. The President elected in 1880, James Garfield, was assassinated by a frustrated job-seeker to his administration. William McKinley was elected in 1900 and was felled by the bullet of an anarchist. Warren G. Harding, the President elected in 1920, died of mysterious circumstances in a San Francisco hotel. His official cause of death was heart failure, but it is rumored that his wife poisoned him.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President elected in 1940, died of a stroke, but no one has been allowed to view the hospital records surrounding his death. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960 and was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Who actually shot him is still unknown, but a government report claims that Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer, supposedly a Communist sympathizer. Great secrecy and intrigue surrounds the death of John F. Kennedy, as theories persist of a conspiracy to kill him involving elements in the U.S. government (see Oliver Stone’s film “JFK”).

The cycle of the Presidents dying in office fits the astrological pattern of the Jupiter/Saturn cycle in an uncanny way, but astrologers cannot explain through astrology why the Presidents started to die. To understand a possible rationale for this, we uncover an amazing story from the birth of this nation that spotlights this country’s karma toward its original inhabitants.

The Story of Tecumseh and The Prophet
The first President to die, William Henry Harrison, was elected on his reputation as an Indian fighter. His campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” referred to the battle of Tippecanoe where his army defeated the Shawnees and Indians of other tribes who had joined a powerful Indian movement led by the charismatic Shawnee War Chief Tecumseh. “Tyler” was Harrison’s Vice Presidential running mate.

Harrison was similar to Dwight Eisenhower after World War II, or Ulysses S. Grant after the Civil War - a returning war hero who became President. At the battle of Tippecanoe, the Shawnees were under the command of Tecumseh’s shamanistic brother who was called the Prophet. It is believed that the U.S. Presidents started to die at twenty year intervals, beginning with William Henry Harrison, because of the Prophet’s Curse.

Tecumseh believed that the only hope for the Indians to survive the onslaught of the whites was to unite into a Confederation of Indian tribes. To promote this vision he spent years tirelessly traveling and speaking to the Indian tribes from Maine to Louisiana, from Minnesota to Florida. The center of his movement was the village at Tippecanoe in Indiana, a center for Indians of all tribes to live with Tecumseh and his Shawnees free from the corrupting influence of the white man’s ways.

When Tecumseh spoke to the Indian tribes on his tours, he told them that a Great Sign would occur that would signal the time when all Indians should rise up and join him in the final great war against the whites, to save their land and their way of life.

Tecumseh was joined by his brother, the Prophet, in his crusade for Indian freedom. The Prophet had been a lifelong drunkard, but one night he received a vision of the Goddess who gave him a message for his people - to give up the food, clothes, tools, alcohol, and way of life of the whites, and return to Native American ways.

Overnight the Prophet transformed from drunkard to holy man, and his message spread like wildfire throughout the Indian tribes. His power increased ten-fold when he dramatically and accurately predicted a solar eclipse in full view of his tribe.

In the meantime William Henry Harrison, who years earlier had helped to defeat an army of Indian tribes that included Tecumseh, was named Governor of the Indiana Territory. His job was to take via treaty as much Indian land as he could for the United States government. Tecumseh was a huge problem, because he refused to sign treaties, and was adept at stirring up the Indians. The powerful influence among the Indians of the Prophet’s Indian revivalist religion also deeply concerned Harrison. He waited to find the right time to destroy the work of Tecumseh and
the Prophet.

In 1811 Tecumseh knew that the time was near for the Great Sign to appear. He needed to go on one more speaking tour to gather the support of key Indian tribes. He instructed his brother, the Prophet, to absolutely refuse any fight with the white man while he was away, for he knew the time was not yet right. The Prophet solemnly agreed. When Harrison discovered that Tecumseh was away on another speaking tour, he requisitioned an army and marched it next to the village at Tippecanoe, where he set up camp.

Envious of Tecumseh’s power and pressured by the young braves to attack Harrison’s army, the Prophet went into trance and came out of it announcing that the white men’s bullets would not harm the Indians, and the white soldiers would not be able to see the Indians in the dark. The Indians attacked the soldiers in the middle of the night, but the soldiers were prepared for their attack. Hand-to-hand combat ensued for three hours, but the Indians were outnumbered and retreated. The following day Harrison’s army marched into Tippecanoe and burned the village along with the Indians’ winter food supply. In one night Tecumseh’s 10-year effort to ensure the survival of his people went up in smoke.

One month later, on the very night Tecumseh had predicted years before, the Great Sign appeared - the greatest earthquake ever to hit North America. With an epicenter in New Madrid, Illinois that is devoid of fault lines, the earthquake caused whole farms to disappear, created lakes where there had been none, made the Mississippi River run backwards at one point, and produced enormous waves from the Great Lakes to New Orleans. But word had already spread that Tecumseh’s movement had been destroyed. Only a relatively few Indians left their homes to join Tecumseh and his cause when the Great Sign appeared.

Tecumseh’s only hope was to join the British forces in their fight against the American government in the War of 1812. The British general Brock recognized Tecumseh’s great skills as a strategist and leader, and together they captured Detroit. But Brock was sent away to lead another army where he died in battle, and the new British general Proctor was an overly-cautious man who had no respect for Tecumseh. With the British army not committed to the fight, Tecumseh and his band of Indians met their Waterloo fighting, as one might guess, an American army led by William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh died in battle but his body was never found. The Prophet fled to Canada.
Living in Kansas in 1836 the Prophet became incensed seeing that William Henry Harrison was running for the office of the Presidency.

It is said that the Prophet proclaimed, “Harrison will not win this time to be the Great Chief, but he may win next time. If he does, he will not finish his term. He will die in his office. And when he dies you will remember my brother Tecumseh’s death. You think I have lost my powers – I who caused the sun to darken and Red Men to give up firewater. But I tell you Harrison will die. And after him, every Great Chief chosen every 20 years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of our people.”

This is called “The Curse of the Prophet”. Harrison lost the election in 1836 but was elected President in 1840. He died one month into his Presidency, starting the cycle of the dying Presidents. If one doesn’t believe in curses, the question arises, “Is the United States unconsciously trying to atone for its original genocidal treatment of Native Americans through this sacrificial pattern?”

The stories of the Jupiter/Saturn cycle and the Prophet’s Curse seem fantastic in their nature, yet history has so far corroborated them. If one accepts that these stories have some validity, the fate of George W. Bush appears to lie in cosmic forces beyond his control. Does he personally have any say in the matter? To discover the answer we need to explore his astrological birthchart, a map of his psyche and potential, which is the third and final story in our exploration of Bush’s fate and destiny.

The Astrological Birthcharts of President Bush
and the United States
We can discover a person’s life purpose and the nature of their conscious awareness by exploring the position of the Sun in their birthchart. President Bush’s Sun falls into the area of the chart called the Twelfth House, where the energy of the collective unconscious and influences from the distant past appear to control a person’s life.

As the most fated of the 12 Houses, the Sun here indicates a person whose life path is seemingly beyond his conscious control. Sometimes a Twelfth House person becomes a spokesperson for the collective currents of his times, such as Bob Dylan. President Bush’s Sun also operates through the Zodiac Sign of Cancer, which indicates that Bush will strongly identify with the matrix of his family, upbringing, and heritage, and often lives in the bubble of his personal unconscious, his own private world. The gift of these placements for Bush is his ability to instinctively tune into the collective unconscious of the people, and be its representative.

The drawback of these placements for Bush is the possibility that he can be a hollow man with no personal center, identified only with the forces of his family, environment, and the collective currents that are moving through him. George W. Bush would need to spend a lifetime attempting to become conscious and self-aware in order to have a modicum of control and choice in his life (awareness of one’s patterns = the power to choose something different).

His spiritual quest would require him to become an individual in his own right, and forge an identity separate from the forces of his environment, family, and upbringing, if he doesn’t want to be at the mercy of uncontrollable unconscious forces (such as repeating his father’s karma, or the country’s karma). To date attaining conscious awareness has not been the focus of George W. Bush’s life. Instead it appears that President Bush identifies with his familial and cultural surroundings and rides the waves of his times, which will either raise him up or carry him down.

President Bush’s fate is linked with the fate of the United States, as both Bush and the U.S. have the Suns in their astrological birthcharts at 13 degrees of the Zodiac Sign Cancer. Even though Bush was born on July 6, two days after America’s birthday, the degrees of their Suns are the same due to the Earth’s wobble on its axis. Furthermore, their Suns are conjoined the star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. When your Sun is conjoined a star, your life feels fated. The “Dog” star Sirius was revered by the ancient Egyptians as the home of their primary deity Isis. They called it “The Scorcher” and its heat and intensity was thought to make dogs rabid.

Under Sirius, great deeds are possible, and the actions of an individual can have a large effect on the collective, but the person may be sacrificed to this collective expression. With effort, one can attain far more than expected under Sirius, but the huge success it can bring might burn you.

At the time of 9/11 the birthcharts of the U.S. and George W. Bush were activated by the planet Jupiter conjoining their Sun and Sirius. Jupiter expands whatever it touches. The country was traumatized while the President gained great prominence because the Sun in the U.S. birthchart is highly stressed while Bush’s Sun is in a very favorable position. Jupiter stimulated a wound in the psyche of the United States, in a dramatic attempt to heal that wound. (I explore this topic in my article “America’s Wound and How It Can Heal”.) Jupiter stimulated a very lucky part of Bush’s chart, a proverbial “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” quality. As Molly Ivins puts it, “Bush is like someone who woke up on third base and thought that he had hit a triple”. With the help of a favorable placement of Jupiter transiting through Bush’s birthchart during and after 9/11, President Bush had been on an extended roll. But in the second half of 2003 we saw his fortune change.

In September and October of 2003, and again in May and June of 2004, Saturn conjoins the Sun and Sirius for George W. Bush. Saturn is the planet of karma, of paying one’s dues, of reaping what one has sown. When Jupiter, the planet of luck and opportunity rolls into your life, you get to pass GO and collect $200. When Saturn comes into your life, you have to stop at the border and pay all of your back taxes. Then your car breaks down. President Bush has been riding the positive side of his Sun conjoined Sirius, attaining more than he could have hoped for, but the “success may burn you” side of Sirius is probably on the horizon. With Saturn approaching his Sun and Sirius, President Bush’s car is about to stop at the border.

When we look at the U.S. birthchart, we see that the stressed Sun reveals itself as a highly ambivalent and unconscious attitude the people of this nation hold toward their leader. They will tend to give their power away to him too readily, but perhaps as a compensation for doing that, at every available opportunity they will try to bring him down. The opportunity to bring down the President occurs every time Saturn forms a major aspect to the Sun in the U.S. chart. The last time Saturn aspected the Sun and Sirius in the U.S. birthchart we witnessed the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The President came close to toppling.

President Bush is undergoing a similar Saturn transit in the U.S. birthchart beginning in September and October of 2003 and culminating in May and June of 2004.

The Saturn transit for Bush is more powerful and dramatic than it was for Clinton, because Saturn actually sits on top of the U.S. Sun, which it does every 30 years. An historical chapter ends and a new one begins for this country, as old karma is reaped and new karma is placed into motion. The last time Saturn conjoined the U.S. Sun we witnessed the Watergate Scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. That conjunction occurred on Aug. 9, 1974, the day President Nixon resigned from the Presidency.

The Watergate Scandal revealed the paranoia, secrecy, and abuse of Presidential power of the Nixon administration. The country became cynical and untrusting toward leaders and politicians for decades afterward. As Saturn conjoined the U.S. Sun in September and October of 2003 events were put into motion that should culminate this May and June when the Saturn transit completes. Will something similar happen to President Bush? The following paragraph reveals a process that is remarkably reminiscent of the Watergate Scandal. Momentous times might be just around the corner.

As Saturn approached its closest aspect to the U.S. Sun on October 25, 2003, an item appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper on October 26 concerning the refusal of the White House to hand over documents to the federal commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. The head of that commission, former Republican governor of New Jersey Thomas Kean said the White House was “quite nervous” about any public hint at the documents’ contents, which include detailed daily intelligence reports given to Bush in the weeks leading up to 9/11. “I will not stand for it”, said Kean referring to the White House refusal to hand over documents, as the commission issued its first subpoena to the Federal Aviation Administration. Commission member former Democratic Senator Max Cleland of Georgia accused the White House of stalling for political reasons, saying the Bush re-election campaign had reason to fear what they were uncovering. “As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it has ever admitted.” By law, the commission is required to complete its investigation by May of 2004, which coincides with Saturn completing its conjunction to the Sun of the U.S. and George W. Bush. However, the deadline has recently been pushed back to July of 2004.

A multitude of astrological factors come together in April, May, and June of 2004 for the birthcharts of both President Bush and the United States, denoting a potentially explosive time. September, October and November look very intense as well, and not just because a Presidential campaign will be occurring. In a sense we are witnessing a cosmic boxing match. On one side of the ring we see the cycles of history and karma described in this article, conspiring to bring down the President. On the other side we see the energy of George W. Bush as glimpsed through his birthchart, revealing a very fortunate person who has a Houdini-like ability to elude consequences.

Which side will win the match?
The 2000 Presidential Election occurred under a retrograde Mercury, when the planet appears to be traveling backward. The Greek god Hermes, Mercury to the Romans, was the cosmic trickster. After he was born his first action was to steal his brother Apollo’s cattle. Anything started under a retrograde Mercury is known to have a strange outcome. Perhaps the outcome of that election had a cosmic sensibility, given the birthchart of George W. Bush that shows his unusual identity with influences from the distant past, and a deep connection with the karma of the United States. President Bush finds himself in the middle of a grand drama, with the karma of the United States acting as the master dramatist.

Copyright Spencer John, November 2003