More on Jhonn's death - William Breeze
In 2001 Geff and Peter [aka Jhonn and Sleazy] visited me in Prague. I had been editing a textbook on astrology for the past several years, and they asked to have their charts done.
Peter's own chart accurately reflected his polymath qualities, and had an odd Mercury placement that combined with Geff's chart in an interesting way, as if Geff acted as Peter's voice as well as his own.
Looking at Geff'schart was sobering -- I remember getting very quiet when first looking at it. Asked what the matter was, I told Geff that I'd not expected to see someone with that particular chart, and that it was a wonder that he wasn't dead.
He immediately agreed, and seemed relieved, in a way, that his long struggles had some "objective" basis. The suggestion in his chart was that of burning the candle at both ends, with strong indicators for drug addiction and mental problems.
The year before their visit I had made a survey of planet placements in ephemerides for the last 40 or 50 years to look for instances of what are called stelliums -- very tight concentrations of large numbers of planets in a sign. I was curious, since I have a Leo stellium from 1955, and wanted to see how often stelliums occurred and study people who actually had them.
Large stelliums are infrequent, happening once or twice in a decade, lasting a few weeks, and they are not well understood. Crowley is one of the few authors to write about them at any length. One of the most powerful stelliums occurred in February 1962 in Aquarius and at first glance I expected to find interesting creative artists or scientists born with it.
The Aquarius planets were almost all squared by Neptune (a strong indicator for alcoholism and addiction), and almost all opposed by Uranus (an aspect that makes for unpredictability and accidents). I concluded that the reason I'd not met any 62 Aquariuses (or so I then thought), and was unable to find examples in chart libraries, was that they were likely to have died young or remain obscure.
Of course other factors affect this prognosis -- whether someone "actualizes" all of their chart though their own personal evolution (most don't), environment, karma, and so on. Also, exactly when someone was born matters (a few days makes a great difference) as does the rising sign and moon position (where a few hours matters greatly).
Geff's particular configuration showed the Aquarius stellium split in two parts, sort of dissociated, with Saturn, Mercury and Mars tightly conjoined within 6° in early Aquarius, all squared by Neptune, and about 11° away another group with Jupiter, Sun and Venus (in 2° Pisces) conjoined within 11°, all opposed by Uranus. His Venus was also opposed by Pluto. The outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto with those aspects to the stellium are traditional afflictions.
Modern astrology texts sometimes use the euphemism “challenging,” along the lines of "the greater thy trial the greater thy triumph," but they are very difficult, especially in combination, and more so when their effects are concentrated on a large group of personal planets, as with Geff.
I was also struck by Peter's chart, and its interpersonal synastry (interaction) with Geff's chart, and how it compensated for needs expressed in his chart. I remarked at the time that their chart combination suggested that Peter kept Geff with us for far longer than his chart suggested might be the case, and helped him find creative expression.
Geff readily agreed, as did Peter. All of the core influences in Coil's output are expressed in their peculiar chart combination -- the dialectic of dark/light, pain/joy, etc., expressed through a higher and radically new awareness.
Geff truly had heaven and hell within him battling for a higher synthesis and gave it voice.
Willam Breeze - Nov 14th 2004
* * *
The Funeral Celebration
for Jhonn
will take place at 1.30pm on Tuesday November 23rd
Though the Ceremony is restricted to close friends and family,
Remote Viewers are welcome.