Sabian Symbols
Elsie May Wheeler - Spiritualist Medium
Elsie Wheeler was born Elsie May Wheeler on September 3, 1887 at 9.39 pm in Norris City, Southern Illinois. Not a great deal is known about her life, but the legacy she left behind lives on through the gift that is the Sabian Symbols. Severely afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, apparently she spent her entire life in a wheelchair.
Even though her birthday Sabian Symbol is Virgo 12: A Bride With Her Veil Snatched Away, Elsie never married nor had children. It seems she may have been "wedded" to a higher spiritual purpose. Her "Veil" seems to be firmly in place as not much has been recorded or written about her.
Elsie, born in 1887, was the youngest of 5 children. Her siblings' names were Ada, Cora, Edward and Charles. The family lived in Mayberry in Hamilton County,and also in Norris City in White County. Her mother's name was Louisa and her father's name Willis. Her mother She was left an orphan after her mother died in 1891 and her father in 1894. Her sister, Cora, died in 1902, Cora's husband, Henry Wakeford died in 1905 and their daughter (Elsie's niece) died in 1900. Cora, however, had another child, Suzanne, who became very close to Elsie in her later years.
She was confined to a wheelchair her entire life with rheumatoid arthritis, and in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 US Census, Elsie is listed as being at the Bethesda Hospital and Home for the Incurables in St. Louis, Missouri; which means she must have been in the Home for the Incurables for at least 20 years. She moved to San Diego some time early in the 1920's, from my research it seems she moved there in 1923 (when she was 36) living with a man listed in the 1930 Census as being her uncle - Frank W. Baxter. From the San Diego City records, Frank and Elsie lived in India Street, Washington and Market Street at various times. In the 1930 Census, Frank was listed as being a barber and Elsie a spiritualist medium. Although Frank was described as her uncle in the 1930 Census, it appears that he was not really her uncle as there is no family connection that can be found. My feeling is that they were listed as neice and uncle as this made their relationship sound more respectable - times then being what they were around these kinds of issues.
Elsie lived with Frank in San Diego from around 1923 until her death in 1938.
She spent many of her days at the San Diego Indoor Sports Club, which is located in the beautiful Mission Hills district. It has been in existence since the early 1900's and is still operating today. It was described as "providing social mixing for people with disabilities."
Elsie become quite famous in San Diego through being a spiritualist medium. At the time of her death, her progressed Sun was at Scorpio 2: A Broken Bottle and Spilled Perfume… she could stand the pain no longer and she left her physical body.
The beauty and grace with which she lived her life is enhanced by the gift she has given to the world. Indeed, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom".
What are the Sabian Symbols?
The ancients divided up the sky, just like any other circle, into 360 degrees. They assigned each of the 12 constellations (star signs or zodiac signs) 30 degrees each: 12 times 30 = 360. The Sabian Symbols are a set of 360 phrases of words that correspond with each of the 360 degrees of the wheel of the zodiac, from Aries 1 to Pisces 30. Consisting from as little as 2 words (Virgo 2: 'A Harem') to as many as 21 words (Taurus 5: 'A Youthful Widow, Fresh and Soul-Cleansed From Grief, Kneels at an Open Grave to Receive the Secret of Eternal Life), each one of these Symbols holds both a story and a unique energy field of their own. These images hold meaning for those degrees of the signs. Although the Symbols have their foundations in astrology, absolutely no knowledge of astrology is needed to use them.
The Sabian Symbols were given birth in San Diego, California, in 1925 by Marc Edmund Jones, a noted American astrologer and spiritualist and the gifted clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler. Jones was interested to find a set of word images to go with every degree of the zodiac. Jones chose Elsie Wheeler as his partner in this 'experiment' (as M.E. Jones called it) as she had a remarkable ability to "see" messages, images and symbols. She used this talent to help her clients, but was rather weary of the standard questions she received, such as "when will I be rich?" and "when will I meet the love of my life?" She was eager to take part as she believed that this was an opportunity to really contribute something to astrology.
How Elsie and Marc brought through the Symbols
One day in San Diego in 1925 (unfortunately the date was not recorded) not far from the harbor, astrologer Marc Edmund Jones assisted spiritualist-medium Elsie Wheeler into his car. Elsie was afflicted with severe arthritis, making any movement very difficult and most likely painful. Marc's car made its way from the house on India Avenue where Elsie lived up the sloping hills to Balboa Park. Exactly where in the park they worked is not known. Marc Edmund Jones wrote that they found a place where they could be surrounded by the vibrations of modern American life but would not be disturbed by passers-by. Also, as Elsie was unable to walk, they could not be moved from the car.
Marc Edmund Jones wrote in his book 'The Sabian Symbols in Astrology' (first published in 1953), "Miss Elsie Wheeler was very anxious to start... it was necessary to provide uninterrupted hours, with a problem of inevitable fatigue to be taken into account. She had to be carried, no others could be present and conditions in general had to enable her to function in her accustomed manner. Balboa Park in San Diego offered a spot where a driveway was a matter of a very few yards from one of the city's busiest traffic intersections, fortuitously meeting the necessity that work of this sort be done in the turmoil of some metropolitan center or other unusually dense aggregation of people active in the business of being. There was a screen of trees and bushes, and during the day no one would show any interest in a car parked here for a few hours."
Marc had a set of 360 3" x 5" cardboard cards that he had prepared. These were blank except for a small notation of the sign and number on one side (i.e. Aries 1, Aries 2 up to Pisces 30). Marc would shuffle the cards and place one in front of Elsie, neither of them knowing the sign or number on the card. Marc wrote about this: "One card was put face down before the medium, and she reported on the picture she saw by inward vision. This was noted hurriedly in pencil on the card itself." During the whole process, Marc kept shuffling the cards. Hence, the Sabian Oracle clairvoyantly came through Elsie's psychically attuned mind completely at random (i.e. not in zodiac order Aries 1, Aries 2, Aries 3 etc.) They did ninety Symbols, took a break, did another ninety, had lunch and a short drive, then did another ninety and finished the last ninety at the end of the day.
That the entire set of Sabian Symbols was visualized and recorded in one day is a truly extraordinary feat! If the process of visualizing and recording the Symbols took four hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon, on average 45 Symbols would have to have been visualized per hour, or one every minute and a half. Elsie Wheeler was obviously tapping into another level of consciousness. >/p>
What they'd achieved on that day became clearer and clearer to Marc Edmund Jones over the following years. He had called the exercise an 'experiment', but exactly what they had discovered is still emerging today through the minds of those who use the Symbols.
Here are the 360 Sabian Symbols explanations.
