Wim
van Dam, M.A.
Wim R. van Dam was born at Haarlem, Netherlands,
26 July 1950, 13.13 GMT (ascendant 9 Scorpio, Wim is not ashamed
of revealing his horoscope to his fellow-astrologers since he
has got Uranus very well placed and a ninth house filled by a
proud stellium in Leo).
At the age of seventeen, after finishing
high school where he excelled in latin, greek and hebrew, he
decided to study
Slavonian languages
for the simple reason, he did not know anything about them. He
would have finished this study in the five to six years it took
officially, if not some funny thing had happened on the way to
his M.A.. November 1968, in a Leyden bookshop, he most unexpectedly
happened upon a Handbook for Astrology (in Dutch). Freshman Wim
was perplexed to suddenly hold such an example of medieval superstition
in his hands and, unbelievable though it seemed, the authoress,
some Else Parker, wrote most seriously about the subject, as
far as he could see!
Wim bought the book at the spot for the very reason
he did not know anything about astrology. He was most curious
to see how
this Else Parker would explain her belief in these apparent
nonsense. “I
wasn't even interested in whether astrology was true or not, I
just wanted to know what these mysterious drawings actually meant,
how they were related to both the planets' positions and people's
lifes. So I bought some cheap tables and cast my horoscope and
that of several people I knew without drawing conclusions about
the value of astrology.
However, one and a half year later,
I was to leave for Russia for the first time and some five weeks
before this I calculated
that
about that time, my secondary Mars from my twelfth house was
to come into a square to my radical sun in nine. That ninth
house was clearly related to the first major journey in
my life. But
what about this twelfth house? Places of loneliness... secret
services...
boarder schools... barracks... of course: prisons! Remember
that in the beginning of the seventees the USSR was at the
height of
its power and the Iron Curtain was completely closed.
Nowadays I would not consider leaving under such a constellation
but at the time I did not believe very much in astrology.
Nevertheless I deliberately did not inform my parents,
but I told my best
friend and his sister I was worried a little. One never knew
with this
astrology. They comforted me smilingly: “Wim, when you return,
please give us a call and then you will be glad to report nothing
has happened. "
When I returned from Russia, I called them immediately and
I still can hear my friend Jan asking mockingly, "Well, Wim, anything
happened to you?" How astonished he was when I told him I
had been in hospital in then Leningrad for three days because of
an infection at my right ankle. Of course! Twelfth house! Hospitals!
(And feet !) How well I remember that one night when, turning myself
around and around in this hospital bed, I groaned "What a
pity, first time to Russia and whoop, into hospital! And if I'm
to believe my horoscope, something awful is to happen to me abroad
soon too…. My God, this is that something! Good heavens,
astrology is true!” So I was converted to astrology by practice, as
most of us. Sceptics often think we astrologers WANT astrology
to be true, but on the
contrary, leaving aside mystical types like followers of Blavatzki
and Jung, I don't know any serious astrologer who thought on beforehand
astrology must be true, almost all of them were, like me, willy
nilly converted because they saw at least one most improbable prediction
come true.”
In fact, the square to the Sun in nine, ruler
of ten, proved to be effective in another negative sense. Wims
study was severely delayed because he devoted much of his
time to astrology. Somehow
he was convinced he was to make some major astrological discovery
after which, as he felt it, acquiring his M.A. would be a piece
of cake. And so it happened: for more than four years Wim devoted
most of his time to the age-old enigma of Ptolemay’s primary
directions until January 1976, when suffering from a heavy Pfeiffer
(primary Mars, ruler of six, together with primary cusp 12 conjunct
to radical acendant), he finally found the right formulae. And
not only these formulae explained his illness, one more indication
they were right, they also told him that in about half a year
he was to have primary Sun in ten, ruler of ten and radically
positioned
in nine, in a trine to his Moon in Sagittarius, ruler of his
ninth house. This could only mean an M.A. And indeed, although
his Pfeiffer
prevented him from studying effectively more than a few hours
a day and in spite of the many examinations that for years had
been
lieing in wait for him to be fulfilled, Wim "as born on
angels wings", graduated in the afternoon of Friday July
9th 1976, on the last possible day before the academical year
was to take
an end. This was Wims first prediction made by means of his own
primary directions. When one year later, his secondary Sun got
into a trine to his Moon, nothing special happened.
With Saturn (ruler of three,
languages) in ten, Wim was not to find a permanent job
easily. Besides, he first
had to keep himself
out of the Army, which he succeeded in thanks to the false testimony
of an outstanding physician, father of another good friend, who
bluntly stated in an official declaration that Wim was plain
mad. In fact, this physician was Wim's greatest astrological
fan and
he thought Wim should devote his time to astrology rather than
to serving Her Majesty. After this, Wim was twice unemployed
for about a year which he did not regret very much
since, being used
to scholarship, he could easily make a living from unemployment
benefit and once more he could devote most of his time to astrology.
These years coincided with the arrival of the first
generations of programmable calculators and PC’s so that
he had the time to get acquainted, for astrology’s sake,
with programming computers. And this in its turm led to the unexpected
side effect that by now he has been working as a computer programmer
for some 25 years at Leyden University Hospital.
Wim is married and has 2 children (see
Wim's Corner's introductory page ).
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