William Frankland’s Secrets of Predictive Astrology

My first contact with the work of William Frankland occurred in the early 1990s when I read Geoffrey Cornelius' book The Moment of Astrology. One of the examples Cornelius cited was a 1926 horary chart by the British astrologer William Frankland. An elderly man had gone missing. His daughter contacted Mr. Frankland requesting help from the stars in finding her father, who was suffering from depression. The astrologer cast the horary chart of the question, studied the birth chart of the missing man, and gave the daughter detailed written instructions on where to look for her father. The daughter's husband followed the astrologer's instructions, which led him to the body of the missing man, who had apparently died by suicide. The case became public knowledge and was written up in several British newspapers.

Impressed by the skill of Mr. Frankland, I decided to read what I could about his astrological techniques. Over the years, I came across two books that Frankland had written in the 1920s and began to experiment with his methods, which often involved novel and creative, yet simple and rapid approaches to prediction in astrology. His symbolic measures were often surprisingly accurate. Unlike traditional astrologers, he began with a numerological analysis of the date of birth. He was one of the first English-speaking astrologers to routinely use 0° Aries and midpoints in his delineations, a practice that was being developed by Alfred Witte in Germany at the time. My most recent book, Secrets of Predictive Astrology, explains his approach in detail.

To test Frankland's ideas, I studied the case examples in his books and also selected a large number of charts at random for testing. More often than not, Frankland's techniques led rapidly to important years and significant events in the native's life, which were not readily apparent from standard astrological methods. His interest was in using symbolic measures to rapidly create a gestalt of important periods in a person’s life. Because the measures were symbolic, he used an orb of about a year to time significant events. Let me give one such example.

While I was writing this text, United States Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away of natural causes on 29 September 2023. She was born on 22 June 1933 at 00:44 AM PST in San Francisco, California (Rodden rating AA, from Birth Certificate). Feinstein was 90.27 years old at her death. I thought her chart would make a good example, taken at random from the news.

In his predictive work, Frankland began by studying the date of birth and calculating "birth numbers" for his clients. Because Senator Feinstein was born on the 22nd of June and the number 22 has two digits, Frankland would calculate both a single-digit (22 -> 2+2 = 4, a single digit) and a double-digit (22 has two digits) birth number.

Let's calculate her single-digit birth number: 22 June 1933 can be written as 22 - 6 - 1933. Next, we add all the single digits together: 2+2+6+1+9+3+3 = 26 as her "single-digit" birth number. Frankland took this birth number symbolically to mean that at age 26 any active astrological predictive factors would be greatly intensified, so that a major and memorable life event was likely at, or very close to, that age if astrological factors concurred.

Dianne's Age 26 spans the period from 22 June 1959 to 22 June 1960, the date she turned 27 years old. An internet search reveals that Dianne married attorney Jack Berman on 2 December 1956, and the couple divorced in the latter part of 1960 when she was 27 years and a few months old.

Having identified age 26 as potentially significant, Frankland would next study the birth chart for evidence of active symbolic measures around that age. Using each degree of the zodiac to represent one year of life, he would notice that Uranus at 26° Aries 44', starting from 0° Aries, corresponds to almost 27 years of age, which is very close to the time of the divorce. Frankland called this measure the "Age along the Zodiac."

One of Frankland's favorite symbolic measures was the "Point of Life," which he based on an idea of Alan Leo who compared the human cycle to the orbit of Uranus. In this system, Alan Leo assigns each sign of the zodiac to seven years of life. The first seven years belong to Aries, the second seven years to Taurus, the third seven years to Gemini, and so on, until Pisces, which governs ages 77 – 84. Then, the cycle repeats, beginning with Aries (ages 84-91). As with the Age along the Zodiac method of directing, the Point of Life measure commences at 0° Aries, a point that symbolizes birth.

Age 26 belongs in the fourth period of seven years, that is, in the sign Cancer (ages 21 – 28). In Dianne's chart, Cancer rules the 4th cusp (home, family, roots) and contains 7th-ruler Venus (marriage, partner),Pluto, and Mercury, which are all in square to Uranus (the planet of divorce) in Aries the 1st house. Frankland would have been concerned about marital problems and the risk of divorce during this period, especially around age 26, which corresponds to about 21° – 26° of Cancer. Age 27 corresponds to about 26° – 30° of Cancer and directly receives the square from Uranus (at 26° Aries 44'). In the Point of Life method, each degree of the zodiac corresponds to about 85 days; thus, the square from Uranus at 26° Aries 44' into Cancer would be exact at about age 27 years and 80 days, close to the time of her divorce.

Now, let's calculate her double-digit birth number: 22 June 1933 can be written as 22 - 6 - 1933.

Converting the year number 1933 to a double-digit number, we get 1+9+3+3 = 16. Then, we add 22 + 6 + 16 = 44 as her "double-digit" birth number. As with the single-digit birth number, Frankland took number 44 to mean that at age 44 any active astrological predictive factors would be highly intensified, so that a major and memorable life event was likely at, or very close to, that age if astrological factors concurred.

Age 44 spans the period from 22 June 1977 to 22 June 1978. It turns out that her second husband, neurosurgeon Dr. Bertram Feinstein, died at home of cancer on Saturday 15 April 1978 when Diane was 44.81 years old.

Having identified age 44 as being potentially significant, Frankland would study the chart for evidence of active symbolic measures around that age. Using each degree of the zodiac to represent one year of life in his Age along the Zodiac method, he would notice that 14° Taurus, measured from 0° Aries, corresponded to age 44 and was in close quincunx to the 7th house cusp of marriage and her spouse. Being six houses away from the 7th cusp, 14° Taurus could signify the husband's ill health. Occupying the 8th house of the 7th house, 14° Taurus could represent the risk of his death. By the end of the year of age 44, when she is about to turn 45 years old, the age along the zodiac will become 15° Taurus in partile square with Saturn Retrograde in Aquarius. Frankland would have been concerned about the husband's ill health and risk of death around this time.

Looking at the Point of Life at age 44, Frankland would have noted that 44 years belongs to the seventh seven-year period, which Alan Leo assigns to Libra (age 42 – 49). In Dianne's chart, Libra rules the 7th house of marriage, partnerships, and her spouse. Age 44 corresponds to roughly 8° – 13° of Libra. This region lies at the end of her natal 6th house. The Point of Life conjoins her 7th cusp around the time she turns 45 years old. There are no close "hits" in the chart to the Point of Life at age 44. However, there is a "real-time" solar eclipse in 1978 at 8° Libra 41' almost exactly conjunct her Point of Life just as she turns 44 years of age. This eclipse, falling in the natal 6th house, will activate the sign Libra and the 7th cusp, which falls in Libra. In this example we see that Frankland's symbolic measures do not replace traditional methods; instead, they supplement and often add additional information to standard techniques.

Finally, let's consider the passing of Dianne Feinstein at age 90.27 years. By the Age along the Zodiac measure, her age corresponds to 0° Cancer 16', which almost exactly conjoins her natal Sun, a symbol of her life force, and squares 0° Aries, a symbol of her entry into the world. By the Point of Life measure, she is in a new cycle of 7-year periods, which begins at age 84 and corresponds to the sign Aries (ages 84 - 91). Specifically, 90.27 years is 6.27 years into the 7-year Aries period that begins at age 84. Doing the math: 6.7 divided by 7 = 89.58% of the way through Aries, or 26° Aries 52', almost exactly conjunct natal Uranus (sudden disruptions) in the 1st house (body, health, vital force). With her Age along the Zodiac conjunct her natal Sun and square her 0° Aries Point, and her Point of Life conjunct natal Uranus, she passed on from this plane of existence.