There's only so much an astrologer can tell, you know.

I have been asked by a few of my readers and by readers of Oh My Stars! to have a look at the birth chart of Woody Allen, in light of the recent re-surfacing of the charges from twenty-one years ago that he molested his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow.

Woody Allen (The Guardian)

But: astrology is not mind-reading. By looking at the birth chart, we can tell all sorts of things about a person, their drives, their talents, their shortcoming and failings. But we can't really see what it is they do with those things. If a psychiatrist informed you that your neighbor was a tested, diagnosed sociopath, that wouldn't automatically mean that your neighbor has bodies buried in his basement. Various estimates tell us that there are somewhere between three and twelve million sociopaths in the United States alone, and the large majority of those aren't serial killers or the stuff of horror movies. Most sociopaths find a niche for themselves as business leaders or as cops or in the military or in politics or whatever. Just because one has the potential to do great evil doesn't mean they are going to.

So, in a spirit of utmost fairness, I am going to look at the birth chart of Woody Allen in the most objective terms possible.

Woody Allen (born December 1st 1935, 10:55 PM, Bronx, NY) is currently undergoing two major sets of astrological transits. First, transiting Neptune (which has a diffusing and dissolving affect on anything it contacts) is on top of his natal Saturn, which rules structure and order. One would expect that under a transit like that, a lot of things in his life might be "dissolving" right now. Given that Saturn is the ruler of his Fifth House (children) and that his natal Saturn is in his Seventh House (marriage), it's not at all surprising that a matter connected to a child custody battle is involved, even if we're talking about a child custody battle that originally happened in 1992, when both Uranus (ruler of the unexpected) and Neptune were passing over his North Node (karmic destiny)... also in his Fifth House, ruling children.

Secondly, the ongoing Uranus-Pluto square is conjunct and square that North Node of his. Once more, we might expect issues regarding children to suddenly come to the forefront -- even if by "suddenly" we mean "suddenly resurfacing to public attention after twenty years of a prolonged, awkward public silence on the matter."

Furthermore, one could look at Woody's chart and say that several difficult aspects make him a candidate for having a sex drive that combines with control issues, and we could say that a trine from his natal Neptune gives him sufficient charm or charisma to overcome accusations that would have wiped out someone else in a similar situation.

But it's at this point I'd like to stop. After all, I wasn't there. I didn't see anything wrong happen myself... so perhaps we should give Woody the benefit of the doubt. It's not like I'm the child who still claims to have been psychologically scarred by betrayal and abuse by an adult. I'm not the mother who risked her own reputation discussing these things in public. I'm not the pediatrician whop reported the abuse in the first place. I wasn't there for any of the four court battle Woody Allen fought and lost to protect his reputation over the matter, resulting in his having to pay over a million dollars for his ex-wife's legal fees. I'm not the judge who wrote in his decision what Woody's behavior was “grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect [Dylan]." I'm not one of the other adults present whose testimony was consistent with Dylan's testimony about the day in question. I'm not the investigator who found the hair that forced Woody to change his story about the attic where the abuse allegedly took place. I'm not the babysitter who was alarmed by Woody's behavior towards Dylan before the incident in question. I'm not the Connecticut prosecutor who said there was enough evidence against Woody to go to trial, but decided not to based on the child's emotional fragility.

So: is Woody Allen guilty? You tell me. There's only so much an astrologer can tell, you know.


Find more from Matthew Currie in his blog, Oh My Stars!