Herschel Progressions when Discovering Uranus
William Herschel was born on November 15, 1738.
Using a morning birth time, his Sun was at about 22 and a half degrees of Scorpio. With hindsight, we know that the as-yet undiscovered planet Uranus was then at 3 Cap 56.
Around the age of 42 he spent many nights studying thousands of fixed stars through telescopes he had built himself. A seemingly pointless exercise, looking at hundreds, probably thousands, of stars, that all looked pretty similar.
What he did was bring into the center of his telescope a certain pinprick of light, a star. He would carefully examine it, and then bring another star forward to be submitted to the same process. The stars would invariably yield nothing of importance, yet still he persevered. By increasing the magnification at times, he noted that these pinpoints of light would remain just that, and no amount of magnification would exhibit any with a true disc.
But one night, March 13, 1781, while sifting through the stars in the constellation of Gemini, a particular star caught his attention. To his acutely attuned vision it seemed somehow different, it arrested his attention and he applied a higher magnification to it.
The star appeared as a disc, having a measurable size in a way that made it totally distinguishable from the thousands of other observable stars. This turned out to be the first recorded discovery of a planet. Astronomer Jérôme Lalande proposed that it be named Herschel in honour of its discoverer. The "H" basis of the symbol was later subscribed to it in his recognition.
What he and science did and do not know, is that if you calculate the position of his progressed Sun at age 42 and a third (December 28, 1738 - equivalent to early in the year 1781, you will see that his progressed Sun was then at approximately 5 Cap 20, and even without knowing his birth time, had just reached the position of a degree from his progessed Uranus, which had moved to 6 Cap 21.
The odds are about 1 in 365, or 0.3%. His progressed Sun had just reached the position of a degree from the planet he had just discovered, which is well-known as the planet that can bring sudden discoveries and fame.
During the ensuing year, as his fame grew worldwide, his progressed Sun and the planet Herschel/Uranus were exactly conjunct.
Like Fleming and so many others who succeeded by sheer determination involving lengthy trial-and-error testing, serendipity intervened, but as in the case of so many others, serendipity does not appear to be a random thing at all. If and when it occurs, the discovery and recognition seem to only take place at a time when such a discovery is aligned in their horoscope, progressions and transits, and indeed, the outer planet configurations for that age.
Hence my suspicion that such discoveries are fated to those few individuals who are aligned with the the cosmic permissivity and revelations available for that age, during the apparently planned evolution of the collective consciousness of mankind.
The discovery was also supported by this conjunction being sextile to Pluto at 5 Scopio 39, the planet of revelations and uncoverings, to within a degree. As you know, Pluto was only discovered about 150 years later.
A small point of interest, in the 90's when getting fully into astrology (which is co-ruled by Uranus), I became acquainted online with a man called Wayne Herschel (who later gave me a copy of the book he had just written, 'The Hidden Records'). He is a great-great something descendant of William Hershel. Like his namesake, he is also by nature a discoverer. It was quite a coincidence to find he lived only a few hundred metres away from me at Umdloti beach. I surfed for years right in front of his house! Makes me wonder how much of this kind of proximity happens to us all without us even knowing about it.
StarLove uses the birth charts as well as the progressed charts |