Aleister Crowley...

at one of our previous Astrology Discussion groups run, our mystery chart was Aleister Crowley.  The birth chart can be seen at the left - if you want to see it more clearly just click on it.

According to Wikipedia Crowley:

Crowley... was an influential English occultist and ceremonial magician....

Crowley was also a hedonist, bisexual, recreational drug experimenter and social critic. In may of these roles he was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time.

Looking at the birth chart you can see that Crowley has Uranus very late in the 1st house on the cusp of the 2nd house - this would suggest is 'revolt against the moral... values of his times'.  Uranus is about being 'shocking' and being on the 1st/2nd house cusp would suggest an unconventional character who has 'shocking' values.  To support this you can see that Mercury squares this Uranus so he is likely to communicate his unique viewpoints to others in a way that isn't exactly diplomatic (even with his Sun/Venus conjunction!).

The Saturn opposing this Uranus also suggests the need to break down the established ways of doing things and the conflict he had with the values of others (7th/8th houses).

Crowley's hedonist ways, I feel, are suggested by the ruler of the chart (Leo Rising = Sun) approaching a conjunction to Venus, the planet of pleasure and good times - anything taken too far can be a bad thing!

Obviously there is a lot more to look at and many ways to interpret the symbolism within a birth chart... these are just some starting thoughts.

The Astrology of Barbie...

This should be interesting... and is! Have a look at this article about the birth chart of barbie from BeliefNet. Here are a couple of the lead paragraphs for you to have a look at:

No doll has been as well-loved or as despised as the Barbie doll. Created by Ruth Handler in the 1950s, she was first introduced to the world at the International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959 which is considered Barbie's official birthday.

I was unable to find the time of day that Barbie was first introduced, but assuming that she was introduced sometime between 10 am and 3 pm her birthchart shows a tight conjunction between the Sun and the Moon, both in Pisces. Pisces is the sign of the dreamer, the mystic, and the creative imagination and there is no doubt that Barbie captured the imagination of many a young girl in the 1960s, including me.