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 ).