Today, April 15, marks the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, the most elegant luxury liner and the largest moving object ever built at that time. Since the day the Titanic struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage in the night of April 14 and sank in the wee hours of April 15, 1912, along with over 1500 of its passengers and crew into the freezing waters of the Atlantic, volumes have been published on the factual, fictional, mythical and mysterious aspects of the disaster.
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| Coffins for the recovered bodies from the Titanic are seen in Halifax in 1912. REUTERS |
Yet there’s been little emphasis on astrological prophesy, apart from Eileen Grimes’ best seller, “Titanic Astrology: The Grand Design of a Famous Shipwreck”.
The Titanic, considered the pinnacle of naval architecture and technological achievement, under the command of Capt. Edward John Smith, set sail from Southampton, England, on April 10, with a stop-over at France and began its voyage at Queenstown, Ireland on April 11, heading for New York. Eileen Grimes presenting her findings based on the position of zodiacal constellations, meticulously speaks of how the ‘Aries North Node’ sent the Titanic full steam ahead, ignoring warnings about icebergs.
On April 13, Sri Lankans joined the people of a few other nations in the region in observing the dawn of a ‘new year’, when the Sun moves (in an astrological sense) from the house of Pisces to the house of Aries in the celestial sphere. The Almanac recommends an observance of ‘malefic’ or non- auspicious period of 12 hours and forty eight minutes called Nonagathe, and any important activity that includes patronization of tanks, rivers and streams is shunned. People even refrain from drawing water from a well, a tradition practised for millenniums.
Hence it would be interesting to survey a hitherto unexplored area; the influence of ‘Malefic Period’, on this tragedy. Accurate times of the incidents and the exact position of the ship are vital in examining the effects of the above phenomenon. Both readings, time of impact, 11.40 p.m. on April 14, sinking 2.20 a.m. on 15th and the coordinates, 41° 432' 553 N, -- 49° 562' 453 W, taken from the ship owners account, were presumed acceptable. Looking fairly deeply into this matter; it was observed that prior to the introduction of ‘Nautical Standard Time’ in 1920, for the operation of ships in high seas, the time as used by a sailing ship was subject to change under a number of criteria. However, calculating the local time of the disaster, we arrive at a time lag of 8 hrs 49 min; meaning it was 8. 29 a.m. on April 15, when it struck the iceberg and after two hours and forty minutes, the same day at 11. 09 a.m., exactly 100 years ago that the Titanic sank.
The almanac, copied and reproduced in “The Dinamina” news sheet of April 3, 1912, says the malefic began at 2.53 p.m. on April 12, and lasts till 3.41a.m., ( local times ) on April 13. (courtesy National Archives) This means the disaster did not occur during the ‘malefic’. Now we come to the next point; did the ship sail from Southampton, or Queenstown heading for New York, during the said period?
The time line of the vessel submitted to the Committee of Inquiry states– Titanic left Southamptan harbour, England at noon on 10 April (5.30 p.m. on 10th - local, long before the malefic began) for France and then it left Cherbourg port, France at 8.10 p.m,(1.40 am on 11th -local) and reached Queenstown , Ireland(now Cobh), at 11.30 a.m. Starboard anchor was raised for the last time and Titanic departing on her first trans-Atlantic crossing for New York, slipped away from the berth carrying 2227 (no confirmed reports on the figure) passengers at 1.30 p.m. on 11th April 1912. The local time being 7.00 pm on April 11, long before the malefic.
Those ‘dyed-in-wool’ believers of ‘bad and good times’, will say the ship sailed across Atlantic during the malefic, while others can argue, it set sail long before.
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