What is the Birth Chart of the United States?

In episode 252 astrologer Nina Gryphon joins the show to talk about question of what is the correct birth chart for the United States, and to review some of the different possible charts that are available.

While this sounds like a simple question, there are actually a number of different birth dates and birth times that are possible candidates for the founding of the United States as country, and each of these options yield slightly or sometimes extremely different planetary placements.

The purpose of this episode was to provide a broad overview of the the issue, and to review some of the different charts that have been used or proposed by astrologers at different points in time.

Most of the research for this episode was compiled by Nina, and we also wanted to give a special shout-out to astrologer Gary Lorentzen for his contributions and advice (update 4/29/2020: see his article The Astrology of American Independence), as well as the AstroDatabank entry on the chart of the US, and Nicholas Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes.

For more information about Nina, check out her website:

NinaGryphon.com

Below you will find some of the show notes that we prepared as the outline for this discussion, followed by links to listen to the episode at the bottom of the page.

This episode is available in both audio and video versions below.

Show Notes and Episode Outline

* Introduction of the topic.

* National horoscopes

* New concept compared to traditional approach of assignment of signs to nations, regions, and cities.

* Prior approach focused on single signs assigned to cities, regions, countries.

* As first set down in book 2 of Ptolemy in the 2nd century.

* Also, lunation and cardinal ingress charts for particular locations such as the capital.

* Became common in the early Medieval tradition.

* Really problematic when nation-states and hard national boundaries were established in 19th century.

* Ingress chart for capitals not too far apart, say, Paris and London, or Bonn and Brussels might be almost identical.

* Earlier reliance on sign assignments circumvented this problem.

* Also sometimes foundation charts for cities. E.g. Baghdad.

* Bagdhdad elected by a group of astrologers.

* For most cities though the foundations were deep in the past.

* Astrologers would sometimes resort to rectification to try to figure out the chart.

* Rectified charts like Constantinople or Rome.

* Maybe this acts as a transition point. Elections and inceptions.

* The 20th century saw a real shift in emphasis towards natal astrology.

* Emphasis in predictive techniques such as transits and progressions.

* These techniques all require a timed natal chart to use.

* In many cases, the original national charts are impossible to obtain.

* There is often a question about when is a nation officially born?

* Astrologers often work with a significant chart from that nation’s history.

* Recognizing that it’s one in a chain of charts representing key moments in the long lifespan of a nation.

* Ideally, such charts have been shown to be useful for predictive purposes.

* Often these charts relate to a transfer of power or bestowing legitimacy on a person or group as leaders. In the life of a nation,