Death by Lightning (2025)

Strange title, to be sure, but is attributed to James Garfield, when asked if he was worried about being assassinated, like Lincoln. His answer was that it’s unlikely, like “Death by Lightning”.

I must admit that I knew nothing about the 20th United States President’s life or death. So, I suppose, this Netflix series has done its civics duty in giving us this story. *Spoiler alert*

James Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881)

This birth chart was already on my computer program. Just looking at the inconjuncts, it is obvious what motivated the man: the Sun/Mercury conjunction linked to a Gemini Midheaven; Mars inconjunct Pluto; and the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction linked to Saturn. To say that the odds were stacked against him is an understatement. Pluto (in Aries) in the 7th House (of open enemies) represents his killer, Charles Guiteau. Like Garfield’s wife, I’m not going to glorify the assassin by publishing anything about him.

Because it took almost 80 days to die from the infection that resulted from the lack of sterilization of the medical equipment used to try to retrieve the bullet, Garfield’s actual death chart doesn’t show us too much, except that Mars was transiting the Ascendant at the time of death (10:35 pm local time). Says it all, really.