James Randi

Six planets of the ten sit in fire signs, three in earth, one in water and not a single one in air. Air is the element of the argument set out and tested, which is what Randi did for fifty years, and his chart has none of it. The record says he debunked psychics and faith healers and offered a million dollars to any of them who could prove the claim.

The Sun, Mercury, Venus and Neptune all sit in Leo, four planets across twenty three degrees of the sign that performs. Neptune is the planet of illusion, and in a working magician it is sitting exactly where it belongs, alongside identity, speech and taste rather than off in a corner of the chart. Three more planets group in Taurus, which is the sign that will not be shifted once it has decided. In a working magician, the planet of illusion sitting with the personal planets rather than away from them is the trade itself written into the chart.

Mars sits square Neptune at two thirds of a degree, the tightest contact in the chart by a distance, which puts drive directly against the planet of illusion. In a man whose trade was first performing deceptions and then dismantling other people's, that single aspect is close to a complete account of the method. The Sun makes easy contact with Saturn at over two degrees. Saturn and Uranus were the two retrograde planets.

He died at Plantation on 20 October 2020, at ninety two. The Sun that day had reached Libra, which is air, the element missing from his chart altogether. The Moon was a thin crescent at twenty per cent, the phase that pushes against the weight of how a thing has always been done, which for somebody who spent fifty years refusing an accepted claim is the apt sky. Uranus, the planet that overturns the arrangement, stood on his natal Jupiter within half a degree, and the Sun sat in easy contact with his natal Neptune. For a chart with six planets in fire and no air at all, a career of argument was carried on energy rather than on debating form.