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BILL HANSEN is innovative in the field of cycle research and prognostication. His unique style of chart interpretation, a blend of ancient knowledge and modern statistical methods, results in highly accurate and practical information that you can use. Bill has contributed four valuable techniques to the field of astrology: a simplified method of natal and transit interpretation; the Relocation Plotter; the Diurnal Planet for a Year Progression technique; and the Dice Oracle. Meet Astro Bill
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WAR & PEACE
by Bill Hansen
War, man’s most ignoble pursuit, has unmistakable patterns of recurrence. Violence has a rhythm! By understanding the cause of these patterns, we may be able to diffuse the periodic outbursts of mass hysteria that lead to unconscionable acts of violence. In the past 3,400 years, the world has enjoyed only 200 years or so of absolute peace. This grim historical note is even more pathetic considering the many religious crusades, peace advocates, and martyrs that have tried and failed to discourage violence. It is easy to shrug-off man’s penchant for violence. Many people accept the human being as an aggressive and deadly animal that preys not only on other animals for food and sport but are capable of wanton murder of its own kind. At no time is man’s predacious nature more fully unleashed than during war. Without social restraints and under the duress of battle, once peaceful people will kill with little provocation.
Those who profess the virtues of peaceful coexistence among archrivals have been frustrated time and time again. The desire for physical conquest and subjugation of weaker peoples is a strong human tendency. Yet pockets of peaceful coexistence among people do exist. The Semai people of
Malaysia never fight. Tribe members resolve conflicts with words. The final word comes from the village leader who makes a ruling; thereafter, the dispute is never mentioned. Many members of the Society for American Archaeology believe that war is a social invention, a tool of political states bent on territorial control and economic expansion. War, they argue, would have developed about 10,000 years ago. Until about a decade ago (revelations during the Pluto perihelion) warfare among primitive peoples was dismissed as nonexistent. But recent archaeological evidence supports the opposing argument that war is a basic element of human nature. Nearly every primitive society ever studied fought wars. Although cultures such as the Semai are exceptions, the Semai had strikingly high homicide rates. They just did not organize into groups to fight one another. Raymond Kelly makes an interesting point in his Warless Societies and the Origin of War (published 2000). Kelly states that those cultures before about 20,000 years ago lacked the concept of group identity. As societies settled into set communities and became more agrarian, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the concept of group identity emerged. People then had a community to fight for. This theory finds support in archaeological records. The oldest known cemetery is in the Nile valley of southern Egypt in what is called Jebel Sahaba. The 59 skeletons uncovered at Jebel Sahaba died of sharp stone wounds. It is here, between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago, that group warfare first appeared.
WAR CYCLES
The probabilities of war, like the probabilities of rain, do not guarantee results. But ignoring the chances of showers can prove uncomfortable in the event of rain. War, on the other hand, is a deadly game; lives are too easily lost if preventative options are thrown to chance. Edward Dewey (1970) discovered an 11.24-year cycle in war that cannot be the result of chance more often than once in 500 times! Dewey’s cycle is a dependable forecasting tool; to ignore this cycle would be the greatest of follies.
The fervor of violence is like an outbreak of disease: if contained locally, the impact is negligible. Most wars are regional conflicts. Small-scale wars usually do not expand beyond a limited territory. But battles can escalade into wars just like a spreading disease can grow into an epidemic. Conditions must be right for widespread warfare, but conditions are right every 11 years!
Dewey wrote in “Cycles” (Vol. 31, November 1980: Foundation for the Study of Cycles), “It is inconceivable that the war cycle, which has recurred as regularly as it has, and has continued over nearly 2,500 years, could possibly be the result of anything except some external cause.” Dewey did not believe that the Sun was responsible for the war period of 11 years, and yet sunspots do seem to be a guiding force leading humanity through times of peace and times of war.
Although worldwide peace seldom exists, the number of people killed in wars fluctuates in set rhythmic patterns. A few local clashes do not spell wider warfare unless the cycle of war is heading up. When the cycle of war nears its peak, a number of large conflicts tend to ignite, and smaller ongoing wars tend to increase in severity. Once the war-fever spreads, peaceful conditions are lost until the following low point in the war cycle.
Relatively peaceful conditions throughout the world are most likely to end within a year or two of sunspot maximums. An increase in local hostilities and the eruption of large-scale war tends to occur near the sunspot peak. Peace resumes within a year or two of sunspot minimums.
It has been suggested that the rate of sunspot change, rather than the actual number of sunspots, is the leading indicator of warfare. Buryl Payne observed that international battles tend to begin a year or two before - or sometimes a year after - sunspot peaks, but never exactly at the maximum. Based on the accompanying table, wars increase to a peak and decrease to a trough within one year of sunspot highs and lows 59% of the time. There is a 92% correlation within two years (before and after). The probability that the correlation between wars and sunspots is due to chance is only one in one hundred twenty five.[1]
The physical mechanism responsible for this statistical fact is geomagnetic activity. Geomagnetic activity is highest either just prior to or just after sunspot peaks, but not at the time of maximum sunspot activity.
The Sun is the supreme generator of geomagnetic fluctuations. Solar activity disturbs the Earth’s magnetic field and apparently changes brain rhythms and the hormone balance of animals and humans. Many studies demonstrate that living organisms are highly sensitive to magnetic changes in the range of the Earth’s field or less (Brown, 1967, Becker, 1983). How small magnetic fields affect human behavior is still largely unknown. Magnetic materials found in dolphins, pigeons, bacteria, and other animals – but not in humans – supposedly modulates geomagnetic changes in the environment. The lack of magnetic materials in the human body means another mediating element must be involved. It might be water. Water is extremely affected by magnetic fields (Ellingsen, 1979).
Extensive scientific inquiry has found that crimes, riots, accidents, and many human ailments (ranging from the flu to heart attacks and psychosis) tend to increase at times of geomagnetic storms. Anxiety and irritation rise with strong solar storms and geomagnetic disturbances - this could account for the wave of violence, accidents, and illness reported.
The geomagnetic field closely follows the sunspot cycle, although there may be as much as a year’s difference between sunspot maximums and geomagnetic peaks. There is also a strong cycle in geomagnetic data that does not synchronize with solar cycles. This cycle is 9.7-years, which correlates with a 9.6-year cycle in international battles discovered by Dewey in 1970. Geomagnetism is influenced by several planetary factors. Geomagnetic storms, for instance, are prevalent when the Moon is full. There are also strong disturbances in the spring and fall when the Earth crosses the solar equator. Certain planetary alignments are also a key factor in triggering sunspots and geomagnetism.
John H. Nelson, short-wave radio quality forecaster for RCA Communications New York, worked out a method of predicting sunspots based on planetary aspects of 0, 90, and 180-degrees. Nelson found that when three hard aspects are made within a 5-degree orb storms on the Sun increase.[2] At least one aspect involving the Earth, Mercury, Venus, or Mars must be made to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. Jupiter/Saturn aspects produced the most severe disturbances. Storms are generally greater and more numerous when multiple planetary aspects occur.
Buryl Payne, Ph.D., however, found that only some planetary conjunctions are associated with increased solar activity; other planetary alignments are associated with decreased sunspot numbers. Solar activity, for instance, increases by about 15% when Mercury is conjunct Uranus, but decreases by 33% when Mercury is conjunct Earth. The fact remains that solar storms are somehow triggered by, and certainly correlate with, a complex array of planetary configurations.
We know that the Sun’s energy output fluctuates throughout the sunspot cycle. The flow of solar energy into inter-planetary space is accompanied by strong magnetic fields. The solar wind pushes back the Earth’s magnetic field into the shape of a teardrop. The electromagnetic qualities of the solar wind also interact with the Earth’s field – the magnetosphere – causing intensity variations. A variety of extremely low frequency (ELF) and very low frequency (VLF) electromagnetic waves are created in this natural magnetic environment. Studies of the effects of ELF and VLF electromagnetic fields on humans and animals number in the hundreds.
Researchers have discovered a relationship between ELF and VLF magnetic fields and changes in many biological systems. In vitro studies point to ELF sensitivities in cellular signaling, ionic flow rates, DNA synthesis, systemic responsiveness to hormones and neurotransmitters, animal passivity, and human reaction time and behavior. Brain chemistry and body metabolism are apparently affected by weak electromagnetic fields. Interestingly, it seems to be the frequency and rate of change in the Earth’s field that creates the effects observed. Biological systems have a difficult time adjusting to rapid changes in field frequency and intensity. Steady change, even at much higher intensity, does not seem to elicit the same disturbing effects that rapid change does. Geomagnetic field strength varies, of course, in response to changes in the solar wind (flow and levels of solar radiation from sunspots). These weak ELF fields likely produce changes in neurotransmitter levels and cellular responsiveness. In this way, human behavior is pulled by the Sun!
The Sun literally electrifies us. The rate of change in the geomagnetic field created by the Sun’s varying output is one factor that modulates a variety of economic and financial activities. The annual rate of change in the U.S. Gross National Product has been compared with Ap (a measurement of electromagnetism) changes in the upper environment. As the intensity of electromagnetic storms rage in the ionosphere, human productivity increases! Consumer prices rise and fall with the Ap index, as does the spot gold price. Bond yields also rise and fall with the annual rate of change in Ap. No wonder then that the stock market (DJIA) rises and falls with electromagnetic disturbances.
The financial markets change as human sentiment changes. Since human behavior is to a certain extent influenced by rapid changes in the geomagnetic field, we might suppose that geomagnetic fluctuations are a factor in market conditions. It is easy to connect this line of thinking with sunspots and human excitability – and war.
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Article written by Bill Hansen 2010. All rights reserved.
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