(from original manuscript, in progress)
After replacing my old bookshelves, I was restless for more domestic improvements, so launched into tidying up a collection of papers I’ve been carrying around for years, and throwing away the dross. That’s when I found a document dating from December 1974, which I’ve taken care not to throw away throughout the vicissitudes of 40 years.
At the time it was written, my family and I were homeless. An unofficial ashram kindly let us stay. The address was 26 Emanuel Avenue, London W3 6JJ. One of the residents offered to do my horoscope, and in retrospect I have no idea why he went to such trouble. As you will see, it is not some clichéd prose dashed off. No money was requested or paid. We had got to know one another superficially, not really as friends. In fact when he handed me these papers, on which he must have spent hours or days, it didn’t feel like a gift of friendship but something sinister and confronting. Till today I have hardly looked at them, intentionally avoided them, as with a mirror that doesn’t show you to advantage. It so accurately describes, at the time the horoscope was cast, the situation of its subject (referred to as “the native”—i.e. the person with the birth details as supplied), that I have no explanation.
And I am inclined to believe that the process of transcription, on this day in March 2015, after forty years’ neglect, must have a certain significance. Another reader couldn’t care in the same way, unless he or she has a similar sense of personal recognition: “This is by someone who knows me better than myself!” And if this should actually happen, then it’s a victory for the sceptic, for it explains the mystery in terms of an illusion exposed; another magic trick that humanity loves to play upon itself. And if that’s not the case, then I’m left wondering what is left thinkable in the situation. But I’m interested to learn what you think, dear reader.
I cannot properly recall its author’s name, but he signs off with a monogram, and that might just be enough to jog my memory and try to trace him, if there’s any point. (To thank him properly for prophecies subsequently fulfilled in succeeding years?) I’ve reproduced the whole thing below: report first, full set of notes & calculations afterwards.
—stable, methodical, endurance, constructiveness or materialistic, dour, avaricious. Personal limitation, frustration and suffering can be felt most in the area of re-creation and exposition of self (i.e. projection of self, offspring of mind (ideas) and possibly of body, expansion of creativeness or happiness, pleasures, creative art, speculation, love-making.)
—idealistic, creative impulses, given form and practical purpose.
—ambitious determined self-will, practical, mechanical-minded, alternating depressive and nervously tensed moods.
—the principle of limitation and form and the principle of communication work together although not in the same spheres of life and not in direct harmony with each other.
—freedom and originality of expression, unconventional experiences and drastic changes may be experienced through conformity and service to the community, also the same sphere of experience will challenge the native’s initiative, physical strength and combative ability. Industrious, tenacious, practical, purposeful or sensuous, obstinate, violent tendencies.
—energetic, enterprising impulses deviating from the normal, rebellious passions, excitable emotions, erratic self-will, restless, impatient, impulsive, fanatical courage, high nervous tension, tendency to sexual abnormalities, self-assertive, disciplined, formative impulses with limited or controlled emotion, constructive or destructive energy, self-reliant, practical, materialistic, hard, severe, ambitious.
The next paragraph was tricky to transcribe so I scanned it instead:
