The Charts of Twins

Having recently attended the poignant funeral service of our old friend Michael, we were inspired to issue this edited version of an article by Joyce Hopewell from Conjunction 69 magazine, June 2018. ¹

The charts of identical twins don’t make for easy interpretation. Consider the charts of our university/college friends Michael and Brian.

I got to know and like Brian and Michael, who were charming, friendly, fun to be with and – to my eyes – completely identical. It was impossible at first to tell which was Brian and which was Michael, but one day, walking through Cambridge with Barry, one of the twins waved and called out “hello” from across the street. “That was Michael”, I said and I was right. “How did you know?” asked Barry. I’ve no idea how I knew, but on reflection I realised that there were subtle differences in their appearances, which I’d obviously noted and absorbed.

Charts for 22/1/1944, 23.30 Ballymoney, Northern Ireland
Michael (left) at 23:55 and Brian (right) at 23:30

Their charts also, at first glance appear identical – the Dynamic/Linear aspect structures are the same, the vertical direction of the overall aspect structure is mirrored in both charts and there is the same colour balance of 2 red, 2 green and 5 blue aspects. Looking at their charts whilst writing about them I’ve had to clearly label each with their names because the subtleties are small, but significant. The devil truly is in the detail. The Brian and Michael I got to know as good friends became distinct individuals, but with a shared, wicked sense of humour, something I might attribute to their shared Jupiter in Leo in 11th and their strong-by-sign Mercury in Capricorn at the apex of the Projection figure.

However, the 25 minutes which separated their births create subtle differences in their charts, which prove to be very significant.

Aspect pattern

First consider some of the identical features in the charts. Both have three recognisable aspect patterns.

• A Large Talent triangle pinned by Sun, Mars/Uranus and Neptune, all in thinking, mentally-focussed, information-acquiring Air signs. This all-blue figure with its mutable motivation indicates an easy-going adaptability. It suggests creativity and an innate talent of flexible, farreaching and, with Sun in Aquarius involved, potentially innovative thought processes.

• The triangle is bisected by a red/blue Ambivalence figure whose red opposition aspect adds energy and oomph to the expression of the Large Talent triangle, at the same time creating an incomplete Kite figure. With an Ambivalence figure the motivation to be active or resting can be on/off. Work, thinking and action take place across the red opposition; Sun opposing Pluto could be a powerful force here, suggesting the capacity for deep, penetrating and transformative thought and ideas, with their expression channelled out into the world via Mars/Uranus in 9th, at the blue corner of the figure.

• Third is a green/blue Projection figure, which Louise Huber sometimes referred to as a “project figure” where creative work is in progress. Mercury at the apex acts as the projection source, transmitting its qualities along the sensitive green quincunxes to the blue sextile which forms the ‘screen’. The pinning planets at the screen ends – Pluto and Mars/Uranus – receive and make the imagined images and ideas visible, simultaneously feeding, via Mars/Uranus in 9th, into the Ambivalence and Large Talent triangles.

Intercepted planets

In a separate linear red/blue aspect we find Jupiter in 11th and Moon/Venus in 3rd opposite Saturn in 9th bringing the 3rd/9th Thinking axis into the equation. In Brian’s chart there are five intercepted planets but in Michael’s chart there are none. Intercepted planets – those in signs with no house cusps – can act as if sequestered and, as aspects of the individual’s personality, have to find other routes to the outside world to express themselves. Intercepted planets can be frustrating for the individual concerned, but they also give rise to a richly introspective inner world – on the Thinking axis it could be one of ideas, of penetrating and incisive thought – and here we begin to touch on the subtle differences in these two charts and people. Michael has no interceptions but has Moon/Venus on the Low Point in 3rd, which may have a similar effect; Brian has five interceptions (Moon/Venus, Saturn, and Mars/Uranus). How might these interceptions have worked out? Both twins studied mathematics at Cambridge, and both played chess while there.

How well I remember meeting Barry in Cambridge for a date only to end up sitting in the corner of the room watching him, Brian, Michael and their other friends playing fast and noisy games of lightning chess.

Serious chess players need intense powers of concentration; here, interceptions on the 3/9 axis could be very useful. Michael said, “I took my degree in mathematics with a bit of chess on the side; Brian in effect took his in chess with a bit of maths on the side”. 

Brian worked as a computer programmer, and I again quote Michael, it was “a career perfectly suited to his exceptional powers of concentration and analytical skills. Later in his career, his best-known client was the Houses of Parliament, for whom he computerised the Hansard archives with full cross-referencing.” Brian was an international chess player. He played for Ireland in the Chess Olympiads in Cuba, and was very proud of the chess set presented to him by Fidel Castro, along with a huge box of cigars. He also played for the Commons in the annual chess match versus the Lords.

Mercury

Michael followed a different path, first going into teaching and then working as an actuary. I speculate here on Mercury in both charts. Michael’s Mercury – an essential communication tool for a teacher – is strong by sign in both charts. But it is on the IC in Michael’s chart, a sound place in the collective area of the chart for a teacher to be communicating information and facts. In Capricorn, Mercury can catalogue factual information efficiently, and as the apex planet in the Projection figure, it can transmit the relevant information out via cuspal Mars/ Uranus and Pluto, pinning the blue “screen”. Michael was a very easy communicator. He had a wealth of entertaining stories to share, with many facts and snippets at his fingertips, and had a broad-based general knowledge. Many years ago he was runner-up in the BBC Radio 4 Brain of Britain quiz. His memory was impressive.

Sun

There are various other subtle differences between the charts. Brian’s Sun is stressed before the 5th cusp, Michael’s in the Mutable zone between the Low Point and the cusp. The Sun is weak by sign in both charts, indicating that Brian’s experience of expressing this aspect if himself could be more edgy and demanding than Michael’s. Note also that the Sun is opposite the Moon’s North Node and therefore conjunct the South Node.

Moon

Both twins have Moon/Venus in Sagittarius in 3rd. In Brian’s chart these are intercepted, in Michael’s they are on the Low Point. The Low Point effect could be similar to having these planets intercepted, so the way out into the world for feelings, emotional responses, the pleasures of relating, the enjoyment of food, art or music may well be channelled via Jupiter in 11th in the fellow fiery sign of Leo. That would be my guess, and one I’d certainly want to check out, although in my experience these brothers were always able to express themselves in this way.

Connection

At Cambridge, the twins took part in an inconclusive experiment looking at psychic connections between twins, but acknowledged that coincidences were often present in their lives. In 2013, Brian suffered a major stroke. Three weeks later, he was told that the cause was a brain tumour, and that it would kill him within months. Michael was at home in Edinburgh and Brian in Hampstead. Knowing Brian could die at any time, or could live for six months, Michael was feeling rather unhappy late one evening, and decided to play a piece of music to give balm for his soul. He says, describing this as another of those coincidental things, “I chose Monteverdi’s Beatus Vir, and played it through twice. I felt so much better that I sought out my wife Dorothy and told her. The following morning, Lorna (Brian’s wife) telephoned to tell me that Brian had just died peacefully in her arms.”

Brian faced his last year with great courage and serenity, and retained his brilliant sense of humour to the end. I can vouch for that; when Barry and I visited him for what was the final time, we seemed to do little apart from laugh and reminisce about old times. And there was a game or two of chess as well.

Michael’s feedback

Michael, having read what I wrote, offered additional information on how he experienced growing up with a twin brother, again, focussing on the individual differences between them. He says:

“Perhaps I could give you my take on our personality differences.

Our mother said that Brian was obviously the dominant twin by the time we were a week old. He was always dominant in intellectual games for two, because of (I always felt) a terrific drive to win, at least by comparison with me. At times, I had the impression that he could to some extent read my mind, but never that I could read his.

When I was aged from about 8 to 12, our older brother David bullied me, but not Brian to nearly the same extent. He has to this day no clear idea why he picked on me, though I think my established position at the bottom of the fraternal hierarchy may have been a factor. I was of course very careful in my behaviour around David, and correspondingly very well behaved towards our parents.

I was excluded from playing with David if he needed one of us for some activity, so I became a voracious reader of our parents’ huge jumble of books, especially Victorian and pre-war reference books. Much of what I used in “Brain of Britain” was acquired by the age of 12 or so. Also, my reading speed was thereafter about twice Brian’s. 


Any reader’s experience with the Huber charts of twins would be of interest.

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1. Access to old copies of Conjunction magazine can be made available on request. ↩︎