Astrology has so many layers which make the study of this craft inexhaustible and fascinating and I believe that one of those layers will literally jump out and touch you like no other. Being extremely Saturnine the clean lines and solid structures of horary appeal to me and in the present climate that we live, people require answers to pressing questions that the natal chart and modern interpretations thereof cannot offer. Used with discretion and skill the ancient art of Horary can make a difference in a modern world.

The aim of many of my articles is to expose the intricacies and beauty of Horary as well as my frailty. Making mistakes is part of our birthright and I learnt very early on upon commencing my Horary studies that if the answer is wrong it lays with the astrologer not the chart. I endeavour to ask questions concerning topics that are possibly of interest to us all, as while “where is my missing cat” is of great importance to the Querent, the actual location of pussy does not make for riveting reading for others.

Subject matter for this article

The programme aired recently on television of the (possible) burial site and the six girls who had been abducted by paedophile Gert van Rooyen and his lover Joey Haarhoff caught my attention. The methods used to locate the site were unorthodox which appealed to my curiosity and I therefore asked the question “Are the bodies of the girls who were abducted/killed by GVR buried at the site exposed on the TV programme?”

It is important to note at the outset that I did not pose a question as to whether or not they were alive as after nearly twenty years it is the assumption that they are not nor “were they ever buried there?” The question was present tense.

I looked at the chart from two different perspectives, namely the significator of the girls and its location and status as well as in the light of “is the rumour true?” Based on the findings exposed on the programme there was no proof that the bones found at the site belonged to any of the girls and this could thus be viewed in the light of hearsay or a rumour but overall as information.

The delineation using method one

Please refer to the chart to follow my methods of judgement. 23rd September 2007, Jhb, SAFR, 4.16pm, 6Pisces55 Asc.

Method One:

• The Significator of the girls is the Moon, Lord 5. We do not turn the chart as we are not looking for the children of anyone specific only at “the girls” in general.
• We want to see the location of the Moon, her Dignities and Debilities both Essential and Accidental and the sign that she is in which will depict her “essence”. This will be compared to what we know of the burial site from the programme to see if anything fits.
• The Moon is in the Cadent 12th at 16Aquarius49. We see that she is ruled by Saturn and is in his Triplicty, she is in the Term of Venus, the Face of Mercury and the Detriment of the Sun. She is not VoC, nor in the Via Combusta and is increasing in light. She is debilitated by being Peregrine (she has no essential dignities or debilities) and by being in the 12th which is weak.
• Please note that if we do turn the chart Lord 5, the Moon, is in the turned 8th, the girl’s house of death and from the radical chart we can see that the girls/bodies are in the house of sorrow, affliction and imprisonment (12th). House placement in the realm of “lost” objects or people is important, but once again we are not enquiring as to the whereabouts of the girls in a general sense.
• According to William Lilly the sign Aquarius shows hilly and uneven places, places “newly digged” or where quarries of stone are or where any minerals have been dug up.

Here are descriptions of the site taken directly from the transcript of the TV documentary – “The area is a dried up dam near the railway line. A mere six suburban blocks from Van Rooyen’s now empty stand.” “Both readings lead me to this area. If you take the reeds and the dam area and you assume you have an accurate reading then this is the correct area. But if there is a slight deviation I would include the railway line. But both readings pointed to this side.” “The property is on the western boundary of Capital Park next to the Apies River near the PPC cement factory.” “This document shows that a portion of the original farm was expropriated in 1975 by Transnet to build a railway line.”

“The remaining land was leased to tenant vegetable farmers until 2006 when developers purchased it for residential construction.” “Included in the area is the basin of a dam and its wall, the ruins of the old farm buildings and a derelict canal system.” “The densely overgrown reed beds had to be cleared before the surface could be examined.” “The silt deposits were 50cm deep, undisturbed and continued below the dam wall. That proved that the dam had been built in an existing wetland.”

• We can see that there is no direct correlation between the sign that the Moon is in and the site described. Aquarius is an air sign and the Moon is above the horison, showing higher up. The site is a dried up dam which is beneath the surface of the earth.
• Please note that we don't require Aspects to the Moon as we are not looking for events that have passed or that are going to occur in the future, we are merely endeavouring to obtain information from the map that we have to ascertain if the information received via the documentary is true or false. It is most certain that the Moon, therefore the girls are in/where whatever Aquarius depicts in the chart but the testimony we require is that it is the same as the burial site on the TV programme.
• We therefore have sufficient testimony to judge that the girls are in all likelihood not buried at the specific site enquired about.

But here is the interwoven thread – Lilly states that Aquarius rules quarries, and in the description above we see that the site is close to a cement works. If this cement is obtained using stone, there will indeed be a quarry. The quarry is not on the (proposed) burial site, but close by.

Another point worth pondering is a statement that one of the archaeologists made - Johan Nel (Archaeologist): “Fires in these reed beds could have turned the bones into cinder. The reason being that the reeds don’t just burn, they keep on smouldering for weeks. It creates a little oven and that could disintegrate the bones completely. Then you have other factors like humidity and the rain and the heat and decomposition will occur very quickly. After months you will be lucky to find much of it left.” It is worth noting that the Moon is in the detriment of the Sun.

The delineation using method two

Method Two:

• As John Frawley states “We are looking here for testimonies that it is true. If we have few or none of these, it will, by default, be false. A VoC Moon indicates that nothing will come of it, true or false”.
• We know that the Moon is not VoC so we now look at a check list to determine if the information is true.
• The angles of the chart are in mutable signs. Fixed signs would have been a tick against the “true” column so we have a “no”.
• Lord 1 is in a mutable sign (no) and in an angular house (yes), Lord 3 is in a fixed sign (yes) and in a cadent house (no), the Moon is in a fixed sign (yes) and in a cadent house (no) and the Moon’s dispositor is in a mutable sign (no) in a cadent house (no) (although we could read Saturn in the 7th as it is 4 degrees away and in the same sign of the 7th but to me this does not look right. The 5 degree rule always needs to apply using a dollop of common sense).
• “Angularity and fixity both carry a sense of solidity, so what we are doing here is banging the information against the chart to see if it is real or an illusion” John Frawley.
• So we deduce based on the information that the chart is providing of 3 “yes” and 6 “no” that the majority decision is that the information is false.

Conclusion method two

We have now explored two methods using the same chart which provides one answer for both- the bodies of the girls are not buried at the site identified on the television programme. It is possible that they were buried there at some stage, but the answer to the specific question posed is negative. While researching the facts presented by the documentary I came across a statement made by a psychic, Belinda Silbert "the girls were sacrificed to Satan and their bodies incinerated afterwards". This presence of fire is food for thought isn't it?

This Horary offering turned out to be straight forward, showing Horary in all its glorious simplicity, we asked a specific question and we received a specific answer. Even though there has been a backlash to the television expose I am confident that in some manner the claim will be pursued in order to validate or disprove it.