Introduction
As I have stated in other twin papers, twin births are especially useful to this astrology. Why? Parents of twins usually know before birth they are having twins, so they pay especial attention to birth time. They do so because later those time differences are a conversation piece as well as forming part of the identity of the twins. So, birth time for twins is likely correct to the minute and the charts cast from them are also close to exact. Comparisons made between them are then based on correct astrology. That means twin births are especially good for testing a major principle of this astrological method, that planets on (≤2° orb) Angles are of primary importance in describing all our lives.

When one twin has a different sign on an Angle, their births are also useful for demonstrating the principle that astrological sets (aspects) ruling an Angle are of far more importance than those which do not.

Examples of this are shown in the samples below and in all of the twin papers on this site.

While we knew the sex of the twins for the first SIDS paper, here we do not. It would have been nice to know, but we do not have to have such information. We have their birth dates (1960) and times, and, importantly, we have the date of death of the one who died.

Here is the link to the first SIDS paper: Male Twin Died of SIDS : Female Twin Lived

Does the astrology for this SIDS child look similar to the astrology of the SIDS death, born 1979, shown in the first paper?

According to our data source, these twins, Numbers 13565 and 13564, were born 8 minutes apart. Their Midheavens and Ascendants will all be approximately 2° apart. That is enough time difference to give us a good separation between them—unless, of course, our significator set falls right in the middle between their Angles.

With birth times recorded (apparently) to the nearest minute, with this set of twins, at least, we can return to the security usually attached to twin births, that is, that their birth times are correct or at least very close to it. Parents pay attention to the minute of birth when twins are being born so they can later tell their children who was born first and how far apart their births occurred.

All the biographical data on twins has been slim.

For twin No. 1 (#13564), born first, Astrodatabank had:
American first-born twin.

For twin No. 2 (#13565), who died and was born second Astrodatabank had:
American second-born twin, died of SIDS on 1/24/1961 [age 5 months, 17 days] at approximately 6:00 a.m., San Francisco, CA.

I have written other papers on twins, that is, separating one twin from another using their astrology. Below are links to each of them :

We should look at a description of the meaning of SIDS.

SIDS—Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
The following excerpt about SIDS is from mayclinic.com (1/5/2012):

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the unexplained death, usually during sleep, of a seemingly healthy baby. Sudden infant death syndrome is sometimes called crib death.

The next excerpt is from is from emedicinehealth.com (1/5/2012):

Sudden infant death syndrome (also known as SIDS) is defined as the sudden death of an infant younger than 1 year of age. If the child's death remains unexplained after a formal investigation into the circumstances of the death (including performance of a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the clinical history), the death is then attributed to SIDS. Sudden infant death is a tragic event for any parent or caregiver.

SIDS is suspected when a previously healthy infant, usually younger than 6 months of age, is found dead in bed. In most cases, no sign of distress is identifiable. The baby typically feeds normally prior to being placed in bed to sleep. The infant is then discovered lifeless, without pulse or respiration. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) may be initiated at the scene, but evidence shows a lack of beneficial effect from CPR. The cause of death remains unknown despite a careful review of the medical history, scene investigation, X-rays, and autopsy.

Astrological Method
And finally, before looking at the astrology for this tragic death, below I present information about this particular astrological method.

This astrology uses the sidereal positions of the planets based on the Fagan-Bradley’s SVP.

Harmonics are taken from the sidereal position of the planets. The Egyptian harmonic, discussed in the paper “About This Method” (see Home Page), is used.

”Lights” include suns, moons, and moons nodes.

This method uses only conjunctions, applying and separating squares, and oppositions. Orbs for planets with lights is 5°; without lights, about 2.5°. Orb for MC/planet or Asc/planet is 2°. Planets so related to each other are referred to as in the same “set.” A set, then, is two or more planets (or an Angle) connected to each other through conjunction, square, and opposition within the defined orbs. The set is more active if it contains a light, and less active without one. Learning to look in terms of “crosses” can be helpful in rapidly finding planets that are in the same set.

Because this approach uses both a birth and conception chart and they share the same axis, birth houses usually overlap different houses of the conception chart. These are called “house overlaps.” House overlaps play an important part in this astrology as investigation of the charts below (and in other papers) will show. Throughout this paper I use the convention when writing about house overlaps of putting the birth house first, then the conception house. So, for instance, a “5th/1st” overlap refers to an overlap of birth 5th house with conception 1st house in that order.

Birth planets (including their harmonics) rule only birth houses. Conception planets (including their harmonics) rule only conception houses.

For a more thorough explanation of this astrological approach, refer to this site’s papers entitled “About This Method” as well as the one entitled "Chart Reading Rules." There is also a link to the method paper at the bottom of every paper.

About This Method

Chart Reading Rules

In the partial charts shown below, birth planets and their harmonics are inside the circle. Conception planets and their harmonics are outside the circle. Conception sidereal planets are red; conception harmonic ones, black. Birth sidereal planets are blue; birth harmonic ones, green. Occasionally, because of space limitations, I have had to violate this inside/outside arrangement, but the color coding remain constant.

Abbreviations used are b = birth, c = conception, and t = transiting. Even though the harmonic used for each chart is always two more than the chart’s number, in these papers I write the harmonic number the same as the chart number. For example, the 5th chart uses the 7th harmonic, but I have established the convention of writing harmonic planets for the 5th chart as, e.g., c5 mars, which reads, “the harmonic for the 5th chart for conception mars.

Now we can look at those charts.

The Charts
For this paper, as with the first SIDS paper, the 3rd chart.chart was the one containing the significator for SIDS.

With more cases of SIDS, it is possible other charts may also contain the significator. Especially if it references the 3rd house (mind/brain) as part of its path. At any rate, right now I suspect the 3rd chart is involved because our 3rd charts are “harmonic enlargements” of our 3rd houses. Gemini is the natural ruler of the 3rd house. And mercury is the ruler of Gemini. Mercury is associated with thinking, speech, brain, mind, and many other things. Gemini, the sign of the twins, has long been associated with several anatomically paired phenomena, including the lungs.

So, an afflicted 3rd chart, with its association with mercury-brain and Gemini-lungs (respiration) clearly has potential as the holder of the significator for SIDS deaths.

The 3rd chart was also the main afflicted chart in the case of a boy born without a corpus collosum, another brain pathology. Absence of a corpus callosum in effect left him with two brinas (left and right) not in communication with each other, making learning and communication difficult tasks. Here is the link to that chart, found in the paper on mental retardation (as a comparison, he was not "retarded"): (Search for Ian’s Astrology .

Just below are the Angles and house cusps for the first-born twin, the one who lived. Those for the one who died are shown below the chart illustrating his significator :

The passage of eight minutes makes enough of a difference for us to be able to separate the twins through using their birth Angles. But, 8 minutes makes very little difference in the placement of the planets (showing the greatest difference in the placement of the harmonic moon in the 12th chart). So, the insides of the twins’ 3rd charts are essentially the same. Here I present only the pertinent planets from the chart of the one who died.

Placidus, Twin No. 2 (Died): C MC—25 Aries 59, c11—1Gem, c12—3Can, C Asc—1 Leo 33, c2—25Leo, c3—23Vir B MC—16 Gemini 42, b11—20Can, b12—20Leo, B Asc—15 Virgo 28, b2—13Lib, b3—13Sco

Set (1) includes B MC and B Asc and sun/mars/saturn. The saturn is about 2° away from B MC and over 3° from B Asc, but we have here three “lights”—B MC, B Asc (both with 2° orbs in the pre-progressed chart), and b3 sun, with a 5° orb (though I never like to use all 5°). Influence of rulers is as follows—b sun rules b 12th house, b mars rules b 3rd and 8th houses, and b saturn co-rules (20 of 33°) b 4th house.

Set (1) in this paper is very much like Set (1) in the first SIDS paper, both as presence of mars and saturn on at least one Angle, and influence to 3d, 4th, and 8th houses.

Being “on an Angle,” this Set (1) is also highly afflicted. Its influence to houses 3 (mind/brain), 4 (end of life), and 8 (transformations, including death), make it threatening, but not bad enough to preclude a live birth. That is apparently because though technically on an Angle, the orb from saturn to the Angles is too large to show us an Angular event.

All Midheavens and Ascendants are not around 90° apart, as these are, so when they are, part of their significance is that they are highlighting the same set at the same time. Often Midheavens and Ascendants progress through sets at different times. When they progress through the same set together, they are strengthening the meaning of that set.

Progressed Angles and lights turn Set (1) deadly. Here are all the influences on that MC/Asc/mars/saturn, now called Set (2), on this child’s date of death. Remember, the Angles also act as lights with a smaller orb than suns, moons, and nodes:

I almost never use harmonics of Angles because in order to be relevant they require exact times of birth. But here, with these twins, we are fairly sure of an exact time of birth. B3 Asc is at 17 Pisces 08, and pb3 Asc is at 19 Pisces 16, fitting into Set (2) above.

Note that the significator set in the first SIDS paper and this each had a harmonic sun progress closer to the significator Angle/mars/saturn.

The first-born twin's birth Angles are too far from the mars and saturn to be on an Angle. Her/his progressed birth Angles were at 15 Gemini 16 and 14 Virgo 13, MC and Asc respectively. Their progressed birth harmonic sun was in the same degree as that for the second-born twin. That gave the first-born twin a loose progressed sun/mars/saturn, but it was not on Angles, therefore did not precipitate SIDS.

The twin who died had his return covering the event on January 15, 1961. Return Asc was at 7 Sagittarius 05 conjunct c saturn at 8 Sagittarius 35 and opposition return mars at 8 Gemini 52, yielding a return Angle/mars/saturn. The first-born twin’s return Asc was at 5 Sagittarius 22—too far away from both mars and saturn for them to be considered on it.

Note Twin 13565 (died) has C MC, ruled by c mars, at 25 Aries 59 in b 8th house. C3 mars, ruler of that C MC, is at 26 Cancer 11 conjunct c3 sun at 25 Cancer 01. That gives this child a forefront 8th house influence. In the first paper the twin who died achieved a forefront 8th influence by having C Asc (conjunct mars and saturn) in b 8th house.

Twins in both papers had a lighted mars in the 3rd house. For the twin in the first paper is was b mars at 19 Aries 27 in b 3rd (and c 8th house) in the same set, and made forefront by, B Asc at 20 Capricorn 09. This twin has c mars (ruler of C MC at 25 Aries 59 in b 8th house) at 11 Libra 14 conjunct c sun at 11 Libra 00. Both are in c 3rd house. But this twin also has a lighted saturn in a 3rd house. C saturn at 8 Sagittarius 35 is in b 3rd house and lighted by c NN at 9 Virgo 34.

Twin 13565 (who died) also had a highly afflicted 10th chart, with a close set of mercury/mars/saturn “on” B Asc (the saturn was b10 saturn at 15 Sagittarius 39, while the mars was c10 mars at 14 Virgo 50. C10 mercury was at 16 Gemini 19.). Influence was to an Angle/ 3rd, 4th, and 8th houses. However, I could not find anything in progressions, return, or transits which gave us the timer for the child’s death. So, I am not certain of the significance of this afflicted 10th chart. Of course it could mean a difficult relationship with the mother, or even neglect on the part of the mother, but without considerably more transparency and research in that area such conclusions could be unnecessarily negative. In the first SIDS paper the twin who died did not have an afflicted 10th chart.

And this twin did not, as did the twin in the first paper, have a progressed sun in exact conjunction with saturn.

Conclusion
It was the second-born twin who died of SIDS and clearly, astrologically, it should have been the second-born one. The first-born one did not have the original Angle/sun/mars/saturn, in this method called an astrological “fault.” Faults are much more likely to turn into negative events when progressions further highlight them or material implying the same thing.

Further Work
I have birth data on twins, one of whom died of SIDS, born one minute apart. However, we are only told the child died around 3 months of age. In order to try to separate twins born so close together date (and even time) of death is absolutely necessary. That is all the data I have on SIDS twins.

Twinflower, a member of the honeysuckle family
From Wildflowers of Michigan Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela

Data Acknowledgments
Letters following each name show the Rodden rating for data reliability.


Twin No. 1 (13564) (A)
Birth: 8/07/1960, 10:44 a.m. PDT, San Francisco, CA. From Astrodatabank by Lois Rodden and Mark McDonough. Dr. Margaret Millard quotes case in NCGR newsletter, Fall, 1987.
Conception:10/29/1959, 12:45:13 a.m. PST, San Francisco, CA.

Twin No. 2 (13565) (A)
Birth: 8/07/1960, 10:52 a.m. PDT, San Francisco, CA. From Astrodatabank by Lois Rodden and Mark McDonough. Dr. Margaret Millard quotes case in NCGR newsletter, Fall, 1987.
Conception:10/29/1959, 12:52:46 a.m. PST, San Francisco, CA.




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