Individuals Interested in Astrology
Ovason tells us his main thesis is that: Washington, D.C. was designed by individuals interested in astrology and astronomy. ('Secret Architecture' page 354) He suggests that, "The angels ... in medieval diagrams ... are the spiritual powers who control the movements of the planets, and ensure that the creative enterprise of the cosmos is kept alive, and in good working order" (page 357) and that "the begnign power of (these) celestial beings may be invited to participate in the spiritual life of a city by means of astrology". (page 374). On page 375 we read, "The majority of esotricists who were involved in the construction of Washington, D.C., must have asked themselves frequently how it would be possible to invite the power or virtue of Hamaliel - of the intelligency of Virgo - into the life of the city". "Architecture was viewed as an instrument for permitting the unrestrained influx of heavenly virtues into the locality where cosmically oriented buildings were created." (Page 121) For more about this read any thing by John Mitchell. Ovason's foregone conclusion is that "who ever arranged things" in DC, was "inviting some archetype, or spiritual being, to direct the destiny of the city" (page 361), just like a priest blessing fishing fleets. Accordingly, the Big Mystery of the layout of the Capital relates to 1)the alignment of Pennsylvania Avenue, and 2) the triangular hub of the city, which reflects "in it's form and symbolism", the nature of the Virgo constellation. [Note that Penn Ave forms one side of the triangle spoken of here.] The Alignment Arguement Since astrology is all about alignments, Ovason takes the aligment approach to the subject. The other main approach is the symbolic approach. Both of these assume magical intent. The symbologists say that the DC map contains magical symbols designed to secure power for certain secret persons, while Ovason invokes the ancient notion of symbolically uniting the heavens and the earth via some 'alignment' of a celestial object. Ancient temples were often aligned to a certain sunrise or set, or the the rising of a certain star. You will note that any city, like DC, which is aligned in a regular grid pattern running N-S-E-W, is celestially aligned just like the great pyramid. Any building facing east aligns with the equinox sunrise, like St Peter's in Rome and the Capitol in DC, since we know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. This makes it silly for Ovason to state dramatically that "The designers of the city oriented it to the Sun - specifically to the sunset". Pennsylvania Avenue If you look at the DC planning maps, you will see that there are three avenues that extend from the SE to the NW side of the city. These are Mass Ave Penn Ave and Virginia Ave, neither of which was 'planned' to be straight. In L'Enfant's words,"The first of these avenues, and the most direct one, begins at the Eastern Branch and ends over Rock Creek at the wharves at Georgetown". Note that Penn Ave, of which he speaks, is composed of three sections and connects the White House and Capitol. In the image below you can recognize that Penn Ave connects the same places as does the already existing 'ferry road'. Zoom Out According to Arnebeck, "Jefferson and the commissioners agreed that a post road should be marked on the engraved plan that took the easiest to build route between the sites of the Capitol, the president's house and Georgetown. (p 60) L'Enfant placed Penn Ave so as to mirror the ferry road, with the relocation of the position of the end point on the east branch and some considerable straightening involved. Next he located the WH and CB along this axis. Ovason asserts that PA was designed in such a way as to produce a particular alignment on a certain day of the year. He suggests that the middle section of PA was meant to align with one sunset on one day. By hanging out at the back of the Capitol Building Ovason determined that the sunset in question was on or about August 10th. So, on August 10, the sun sets, as seen from the CB, on the NW end of PA over the White House. I know what your thinking ... the lion's paw. The sun rules Leo, the sun is in Leo in early August, the lion and the sun are both symbols of leadership, and the sun sets over the White House, the president's home, and Hiram was raised by the grip of the lion's paw, the sun in leo. But that is not the direction in which Ovason goes. Ovason claims that they aligned PA with a sunset in Leo over the White House, because after the sunsets, the Virgo constellation can be seen in the southwest sky there; in keeping with the notion that the city was 'dedicated' to the Virgo (the divine femine?). You will note that this is not exactly what I'd call "orientations to the sunset and to the stars". It is an orientation to the sunset, but not really an orientation to any stars. The question that arises is "if the intention is to connect to the Virgo, why focus on a solar event that occurs in Leo on the WH?" Ovason's answer is that the focus is the Virgo constellation seen in the sky at that time, and the fact that a triangle of stars in that region of the sky imitates shapes in the DC map. It's not far from what you read in the "Orion Mystery", where they claim that the three stars in Orion's Belt are the three pyramids at Gizah and other monuments in the area correspond to other stars in the constellation. More about the triangle later, right now I would like to address the idea of one sunset on one day. One Sunset If you have never made a personal stonehenge, I recommend that you take a year and place two markers as many paces apart as you need to be able to site a straight line. Begin on an equinox by placing one marker on the ground, then aligning the other one over it to the rising sun. This is due east. At that sunset you can reverse your postition to see the alignment with that. Throughout the year mark the periphera of your 'area' with something that tells you the extreme positions of the sun, the solstices; these are north and south of due east. If we look to the west we see the sunset due west in the spring, then it sets in the northwest in the summer, due west again in the fall and to the southwest in the winter (in the northern hemisphere). We call this cycle the 'solar arc'. Ovason tells us that the total solar arc at DC is 62 degrees. This means that the sun is 31 degrees north of west in June. PA runs at 19.5 degrees from the horizontal. On page 82 of "Secret Architecture" he presents an image (seen below) meant to illustrate the solar arc at Washington DC, meaning the distance that the sun travels through the year on the western horizon at sunset. He is leading up to telling us about how the sun sets over Pennsylvania Avenue as seen from the Capitol Building in August. Unfortunately he has marked the sunset in the map with a 'E' instead of a 'W' for west. On page 83 he points out that on March 21 and September 21 "the Sun sets to the due west, along the basic west-east line adopted by L'Enfant and Ellicott for their magnificent plan for the city", as if they were picking where the sun would set. The fact is if the streets are aligned N-S and E-W, they are aligned with the equinoxes that occur in March and September. As Ovason puts it this "marks the spring and winter equinoxes". He should have written 'spring and fall', but I don't guess that matters much now. You will note that these errors were reviewed by a proof reader and illustrator and others besides the author, and no one noticed. Ovason proclaims that the middle section of PA was aligned to the sunset on one day in the first week in August which highlights the Virgo constellation which is tied to the city, and which features a triangle that matches the dc layout. So what are we to make of the fact that the sun sets in the same place every May, in Taurus, which would feature Gemini after sunset? Ovason does not mention this. In other words it is not true that Pennsylvania Avenue aligns with one sunset one day, it aligns with two different sun sets, once in May following the spring equinox, then in August after the Solstice. Astronomers and pagans will note that the first week in May and August correspond to two of the four cross-quarter days, the half way points between the solstices and equinoxes. If you look at the DC map you will see that Maryland Avenue mirrors Penn Ave, with the result that the sun sets over Maryland Ave as seen from the CB in early February and November, which is the times of the other two cross-quarter days. Maryland and Penn Ave's are the ones depicted as a compass by symbologists. Cardinal, Fixed The solstice and equinoxes occur in what are called the cardinal zodiac signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. We know that PA is aligned to sunsets in Taurus and Leo, and looking at Maryland Ave (mirrors PA toward the Jeff Mml) we see it aligned to sunsets in Feb and November, Aquarius and Scorpio. These are the fixed signs associated with the 4 living creatures in Ezekiel and Revelations. At any rate, I'd have to say that I believe that PA points us to 4 not 1 sunset. A Striaght Line Looking at the path of Pennsylvannia Avenue, we see three distinct segments, 1) one running from northwest DC (Georgetown) to the White House (WH), 2) another from there to the Capitol Building (CB), and 3) a third from there to the Eastern Branch. As David Ovason points out ("Secret Architecture" page 331) "Pennsylvania Avenue has been built (in accordance with L'Enfant's map) as three sections which run at different angles to one another"; however, If we overlay a straight line from the northwest to the river, we notice that it agrees with the original until it reaches the WH, but that the two diverge until they meet again at the same point on the river's edge. Had the Capitol Building been located a few hundred feet to the south, Pennsylvannia Avenue would have been a "straight shot" all the way to the river. By placing the stright-edge on the middle section, Ovason hopes to show that while "The general belief is that L'Enfant designed Pennsylvania Avenue as a straight thouroughfare throught the city... this is not true... If you lay a straight edge along the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, you will quickly establish that it was never intended that it should be laid out on a straight line: the western extension is subtended three degrees to the north on L'Enfant's map". When Ovason says "the length of Pennsylvania Avenue", he means segment 2, between the WH and CB. "The avenue joining the first two important sites determined the approximate angle of the radiants from the Capitol." (Ovason p 41) By this he can only mean Maryland Avenue, because no other streets depend on the alignment of Penn Ave as it does. Ovason attempts to characterize the middle segement as the main or straight alignment, but as you can see, it would appear that segment 1, formed by connecting two corners of the pentagon, is the straight segment; in that it connects three of the four points of the avenue. Why the Bend? The question that arises is why is there a bend in Pennsylvannia Avenue? That is, why did the planners not lay it out as a straight line? Ovason's basic assumption is that the "aligment" of middle segment of PA was intentional. On page 331 he states that, "It appears that L'Enfant, and Ellicott (who adjusted the Frenchman's maps slightly - even in regard to this angle of Pennsylvannia Avenue), wanted this stretch of the avenue ... to orient differently from the rest". And, "Why did Andrew Ellicott measure the length of Pennsylvania Avenue in such a way that it's central portion, between the Capitol and the White House, ran at an angle different from the rest?... he did this in order to orient this stretch to a particular sunset". (page 332) One thesis of his book is that this segment of the avenue aligns to the sunset around August 10th, and while he continues to point to this "one day or sunset", he fails to remind us that the sun also sets there in early May. The offset in PA at the CB is about 3 degrees. Ovason says specifically that the planners deviated from a straight line in order to make the section between the CB and WH align with the Aug 10 sunset. Once again, that is because you can see the Virgo constellation there after the sun sets (in Leo). As you probably already know, a zodiac sign is 30 degrees wide, and the Virgo is the second largest named constellation in the sky. The largest is the Hydra (the multi headed serpent that goes before the woman in Rev 12). The Hydra and Virgo are side by side in the sky. The point that I am trying to make is that if the avenue had been made straight, the sunset that it aligned with would have been 3 days later, and that would not make much difference in the viewing of one of the largest constellations. Nothing is really oriented to the Virgo in DC. Ie, this does not make for a good reason to put a bend in PA. It could have been built aligned but straight. Try this. Next August, go outside and watch the sunset for a month and determine which night would be best for viewing the Virgo constellation just after sunset. I mean the 'one sunset' that you would pick. Continue

Individuals Interested in Astrology

Ovason tells us his main thesis is that: Washington, D.C. was designed by individuals interested in astrology and astronomy. ('Secret Architecture' page 354)

He suggests that, "The angels ... in medieval diagrams ... are the spiritual powers who control the movements of the planets, and ensure that the creative enterprise of the cosmos is kept alive, and in good working order" (page 357) and that "the begnign power of (these) celestial beings may be invited to participate in the spiritual life of a city by means of astrology". (page 374).

On page 375 we read, "The majority of esotricists who were involved in the construction of Washington, D.C., must have asked themselves frequently how it would be possible to invite the power or virtue of Hamaliel - of the intelligency of Virgo - into the life of the city".
"Architecture was viewed as an instrument for permitting the unrestrained influx of heavenly virtues into the locality where cosmically oriented buildings were created." (Page 121) For more about this read any thing by John Mitchell.

Ovason's foregone conclusion is that "who ever arranged things" in DC, was "inviting some archetype, or spiritual being, to direct the destiny of the city" (page 361), just like a priest blessing fishing fleets. Accordingly, the Big Mystery of the layout of the Capital relates to 1)the alignment of Pennsylvania Avenue, and 2) the triangular hub of the city, which reflects "in it's form and symbolism", the nature of the Virgo constellation. [Note that Penn Ave forms one side of the triangle spoken of here.]

The Alignment Arguement
Since astrology is all about alignments, Ovason takes the aligment approach to the subject. The other main approach is the symbolic approach. Both of these assume magical intent. The symbologists say that the DC map contains magical symbols designed to secure power for certain secret persons, while Ovason invokes the ancient notion of symbolically uniting the heavens and the earth via some 'alignment' of a celestial object. Ancient temples were often aligned to a certain sunrise or set, or the the rising of a certain star.

You will note that any city, like DC, which is aligned in a regular grid pattern running N-S-E-W, is celestially aligned just like the great pyramid. Any building facing east aligns with the equinox sunrise, like St Peter's in Rome and the Capitol in DC, since we know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. This makes it silly for Ovason to state dramatically that "The designers of the city oriented it to the Sun - specifically to the sunset".

Pennsylvania Avenue
If you look at the DC planning maps, you will see that there are three avenues that extend from the SE to the NW side of the city. These are Mass Ave Penn Ave and Virginia Ave, neither of which was 'planned' to be straight.

In L'Enfant's words,"The first of these avenues, and the most direct one, begins at the Eastern Branch and ends over Rock Creek at the wharves at Georgetown". Note that Penn Ave, of which he speaks, is composed of three sections and connects the White House and Capitol. In the image below you can recognize that Penn Ave connects the same places as does the already existing 'ferry road'.

Zoom Out
According to Arnebeck, "Jefferson and the commissioners agreed that a post road should be marked on the engraved plan that took the easiest to build route between the sites of the Capitol, the president's house and Georgetown. (p 60)
L'Enfant placed Penn Ave so as to mirror the ferry road, with the relocation of the position of the end point on the east branch and some considerable straightening involved. Next he located the WH and CB along this axis.

Ovason asserts that PA was designed in such a way as to produce a particular alignment on a certain day of the year. He suggests that the middle section of PA was meant to align with one sunset on one day. By hanging out at the back of the Capitol Building Ovason determined that the sunset in question was on or about August 10th. So, on August 10, the sun sets, as seen from the CB, on the NW end of PA over the White House.
I know what your thinking ... the lion's paw. The sun rules Leo, the sun is in Leo in early August, the lion and the sun are both symbols of leadership, and the sun sets over the White House, the president's home, and Hiram was raised by the grip of the lion's paw, the sun in leo. But that is not the direction in which Ovason goes.
Ovason claims that they aligned PA with a sunset in Leo over the White House, because after the sunsets, the Virgo constellation can be seen in the southwest sky there; in keeping with the notion that the city was 'dedicated' to the Virgo (the divine femine?). You will note that this is not exactly what I'd call "orientations to the sunset and to the stars". It is an orientation to the sunset, but not really an orientation to any stars.
The question that arises is "if the intention is to connect to the Virgo, why focus on a solar event that occurs in Leo on the WH?" Ovason's answer is that the focus is the Virgo constellation seen in the sky at that time, and the fact that a triangle of stars in that region of the sky imitates shapes in the DC map. It's not far from what you read in the "Orion Mystery", where they claim that the three stars in Orion's Belt are the three pyramids at Gizah and other monuments in the area correspond to other stars in the constellation.
More about the triangle later, right now I would like to address the idea of one sunset on one day.

One Sunset
If you have never made a personal stonehenge, I recommend that you take a year and place two markers as many paces apart as you need to be able to site a straight line. Begin on an equinox by placing one marker on the ground, then aligning the other one over it to the rising sun. This is due east. At that sunset you can reverse your postition to see the alignment with that.
Throughout the year mark the periphera of your 'area' with something that tells you the extreme positions of the sun, the solstices; these are north and south of due east. If we look to the west we see the sunset due west in the spring, then it sets in the northwest in the summer, due west again in the fall and to the southwest in the winter (in the northern hemisphere). We call this cycle the 'solar arc'. Ovason tells us that the total solar arc at DC is 62 degrees. This means that the sun is 31 degrees north of west in June. PA runs at 19.5 degrees from the horizontal.

On page 82 of "Secret Architecture" he presents an image (seen below) meant to illustrate the solar arc at Washington DC, meaning the distance that the sun travels through the year on the western horizon at sunset. He is leading up to telling us about how the sun sets over Pennsylvania Avenue as seen from the Capitol Building in August. Unfortunately he has marked the sunset in the map with a 'E' instead of a 'W' for west.

On page 83 he points out that on March 21 and September 21 "the Sun sets to the due west, along the basic west-east line adopted by L'Enfant and Ellicott for their magnificent plan for the city", as if they were picking where the sun would set. The fact is if the streets are aligned N-S and E-W, they are aligned with the equinoxes that occur in March and September. As Ovason puts it this "marks the spring and winter equinoxes". He should have written 'spring and fall', but I don't guess that matters much now.
You will note that these errors were reviewed by a proof reader and illustrator and others besides the author, and no one noticed.

Ovason proclaims that the middle section of PA was aligned to the sunset on one day in the first week in August which highlights the Virgo constellation which is tied to the city, and which features a triangle that matches the dc layout. So what are we to make of the fact that the sun sets in the same place every May, in Taurus, which would feature Gemini after sunset? Ovason does not mention this.
In other words it is not true that Pennsylvania Avenue aligns with one sunset one day, it aligns with two different sun sets, once in May following the spring equinox, then in August after the Solstice. Astronomers and pagans will note that the first week in May and August correspond to two of the four cross-quarter days, the half way points between the solstices and equinoxes.

If you look at the DC map you will see that Maryland Avenue mirrors Penn Ave, with the result that the sun sets over Maryland Ave as seen from the CB in early February and November, which is the times of the other two cross-quarter days. Maryland and Penn Ave's are the ones depicted as a compass by symbologists.

Cardinal, Fixed
The solstice and equinoxes occur in what are called the cardinal zodiac signs, Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. We know that PA is aligned to sunsets in Taurus and Leo, and looking at Maryland Ave (mirrors PA toward the Jeff Mml) we see it aligned to sunsets in Feb and November, Aquarius and Scorpio. These are the fixed signs associated with the 4 living creatures in Ezekiel and Revelations.
At any rate, I'd have to say that I believe that PA points us to 4 not 1 sunset.

A Striaght Line
Looking at the path of Pennsylvannia Avenue, we see three distinct segments, 1) one running from northwest DC (Georgetown) to the White House (WH), 2) another from there to the Capitol Building (CB), and 3) a third from there to the Eastern Branch. As David Ovason points out ("Secret Architecture" page 331) "Pennsylvania Avenue has been built (in accordance with L'Enfant's map) as three sections which run at different angles to one another"; however,

If we overlay a straight line from the northwest to the river, we notice that it agrees with the original until it reaches the WH, but that the two diverge until they meet again at the same point on the river's edge. Had the Capitol Building been located a few hundred feet to the south, Pennsylvannia Avenue would have been a "straight shot" all the way to the river.

By placing the stright-edge on the middle section, Ovason hopes to show that while "The general belief is that L'Enfant designed Pennsylvania Avenue as a straight thouroughfare throught the city... this is not true... If you lay a straight edge along the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, you will quickly establish that it was never intended that it should be laid out on a straight line: the western extension is subtended three degrees to the north on L'Enfant's map". When Ovason says "the length of Pennsylvania Avenue", he means segment 2, between the WH and CB.
"The avenue joining the first two important sites determined the approximate angle of the radiants from the Capitol." (Ovason p 41) By this he can only mean Maryland Avenue, because no other streets depend on the alignment of Penn Ave as it does.
Ovason attempts to characterize the middle segement as the main or straight alignment, but as you can see, it would appear that segment 1, formed by connecting two corners of the pentagon, is the straight segment; in that it connects three of the four points of the avenue.

Why the Bend?
The question that arises is why is there a bend in Pennsylvannia Avenue? That is, why did the planners not lay it out as a straight line?
Ovason's basic assumption is that the "aligment" of middle segment of PA was intentional. On page 331 he states that, "It appears that L'Enfant, and Ellicott (who adjusted the Frenchman's maps slightly - even in regard to this angle of Pennsylvannia Avenue), wanted this stretch of the avenue ... to orient differently from the rest".
And, "Why did Andrew Ellicott measure the length of Pennsylvania Avenue in such a way that it's central portion, between the Capitol and the White House, ran at an angle different from the rest?... he did this in order to orient this stretch to a particular sunset". (page 332)
One thesis of his book is that this segment of the avenue aligns to the sunset around August 10th, and while he continues to point to this "one day or sunset", he fails to remind us that the sun also sets there in early May.
The offset in PA at the CB is about 3 degrees. Ovason says specifically that the planners deviated from a straight line in order to make the section between the CB and WH align with the Aug 10 sunset. Once again, that is because you can see the Virgo constellation there after the sun sets (in Leo). As you probably already know, a zodiac sign is 30 degrees wide, and the Virgo is the second largest named constellation in the sky. The largest is the Hydra (the multi headed serpent that goes before the woman in Rev 12). The Hydra and Virgo are side by side in the sky.
The point that I am trying to make is that if the avenue had been made straight, the sunset that it aligned with would have been 3 days later, and that would not make much difference in the viewing of one of the largest constellations. Nothing is really oriented to the Virgo in DC. Ie, this does not make for a good reason to put a bend in PA. It could have been built aligned but straight.
Try this. Next August, go outside and watch the sunset for a month and determine which night would be best for viewing the Virgo constellation just after sunset. I mean the 'one sunset' that you would pick.

Continue