General Issues > Twins

1. Why can twins - who have an almost identical chart - be very different?
   
   The simple answer is that twins divide the chart between them. Every horoscope contains several themes, archetypal figures, inner contradictions, etc. A child who is not born a twin will settle this within his or her own personality, choose to live some of these issues and keep others in the background. In the course of his/her life, some of the formerly unconscious issues will be developed and expressed. The different roles within the personality are all there as dispositions at the beginning of the child's life but will be developed at different times.
   
   For twins, this is different. They 'divide' the chart between them early in life. If they live and grow up together, they cannot both enact the same roles which are part of both their personalities but tend to choose different roles. Often, the 'alpha twin' is stronger and makes his/her choice, leaving the rest to the other. This division can change in the course of a lifetime.
   There are cases in which identical twins are brought up to be really identical, by parents who find this so cute. It is, in our opinion, psychologically very unhealthy to force children into this game. In twin research, there are striking cases of separated twins who have developed very similar lives. This is no surprise if we think along the lines described above. If the twins grow up separated, the other does not occupy the roles they would like to express themselves. Both can play the same roles, as indicated in their identical horoscopes, because the other is not in their way.
   
   Liz Greene writes in a special paragraph for the Child's Horoscope, the really excellent computerised report available at Astrodienst:
   
   The horoscope of a twin boy or girl
   This child is one of a pair of twins. He/She shares with the other twin an almost identical birth horoscope. But any parent of twins will recognise that each has his or her own distinctive personality. Twins, sharing many personality characteristics, often try especially hard to define their own psychological territory, and often they do this by a kind of "division" of the birth chart. One twin will appropriate certain features of the horoscope while the other twin will appropriate the rest. Twins tend to polarise. In their need to assert a separate individuality they may both unconsciously avoid sharing qualities which they fear will make them too like the other. The perceptive parent may observe that in early childhood twins periodically exchange roles, each one trying out personality traits which the other was displaying a little while earlier. The polarising process sets in a little later on. As they grow older and develop separate lives twins usually find it easier to own and express those qualities they "gave away" to the other twin in early life. And the unique spark of individuality within will always ensure that, even if they look alike, they will remain distinct individuals with a unique journey through life.
   
   Of course our computer cannot know whether a chart is the chart of a twin. Only when this is indicated by the person ordering the reports, the 'twin paragraph' is included by our order processing staff.
   If you want to order reports for twins, we offer the second copy, which is identical in most cases except for the name, at a very much reduced price of 25% of the regular price if ordered at the same time.
   
   
2. What kind of chart comparison can I do for twins? A composite chart turns out the same as the natal charts. Are there other methods?
   
   The composite chart does not work for twins. The only approach for a relationship chart for twins which works, as far as we know, is the one by our author Mona Riegger, as used in the report "Horoscope for Two". It can be ordered in the Astro Shop.
   Mona's approach makes a distinction between 'the older' and 'the younger', which is always defined with twins, even when born by cesarean section. Then she reverts some elements of the Davison relationship chart for the younger one, getting two distinctive charts. She is able to make very interesting deductions about the relationship between the two. Not accidentally Mona is a mother of twins.