by Maya del Mar

The Book of World Horoscopes by Nicholas Campion. Cinnabar Books, Bristol, England, 1996. Hardback (out of print).

[Maya first reviewed this book in July 2002. Due to the current intensity of the global political situation, she feels it deserves renewed attention.]

This priceless book was first published in 1988 in paperback. Nick revised and added to that original edition, and published the rich hardback in 1996. My old paperback is falling apart, but I still use it because Nick included Chiron in the charts of nations, which he didn’t in the new edition.

This is an amazing book, packed with material for the history buff. The core of the book consists of nearly 500 national and event charts, together with historical descriptions and the meanings of various founding events. Nick is a topnotch researcher, and loves history as well as astrology.

Invaluable is a listing of all of the planets sorted by degrees, both by separate planet and as an integrated planetary index. For instance, Saturn turns direct this month at 23 Gemini. I can look up 23 Gemini in the integrated list, and among the entries I find are the United Nations Moon and the Sri Lanka Independence Uranus. I know that these energies will be pressured and stressed and pushed into shape by Saturn now. It’s certainly clear in the case of the United Nations. We’ve seen that the pusher and shaper is the U.S. Mars, close to that same degree.

Let’s see if any country has their Sun at the degree of the powerfully transformative Mars-Pluto conjunction of the Full Moon, 20 Sagittarius. Indeed, one nation, Kenya, has its Sun at 20 Sagittarius. Big change in the government of Kenya will be set in motion this month, possibly with the involvement of violence.

Let us look at Iraq’s chart. The chart for the Republic, set for July 14, 1958, does have an opposition very close to the Mars-Pluto-Saturn opposition in the heavens. Iraq’s Moon-Venus conjunction is at 20 Gemini, and its Saturn at 21 Sagittarius. This is a Saturn opposition for Iraq, i.e., a major turning point in the cycle of authority begun 14-15 years ago.

At that time, in 1987-88, the Iraq-Iran war was going strong, and the U.S. was very involved in it, helping both sides, with the common denominator being the threat to oil tankers and oil installations. In 1988, the Iraqis went on the offensive against the Kurds, and later that year a peace was concluded between Iran and Iraq.

The Astro*Carto*Graphy Map for the February Full Moon corroborates troublesome change for Iraq. Tough Saturn and Mars lines move through Baghdad, and Pluto ascends through Turkey, likely source of U.S. strikes.

Nick includes many charts for historical and political events. For instance, the chart for the first controlled nuclear reaction in Chicago shows Saturn exactly conjoined the U.S. Uranus at 9 Gemini. This energy in the U.S. chart refers to technology, as well as to specifically weapons technology. The first atomic explosion at Alamagordo had Venus at that degree, and the bomb dropped by the U.S. over Hiroshima in August 1945 had Mars at 9 Gemini.

This is one of those wonderful books where you can open a page anywhere, and find some new and interesting information—even if you never looked at a chart.