yuzuru wrote:If you are looking for symmetry, Dorotheus said that Saturn is feminine.

Thanks, Yuzuru. Do you have a reference for this?

My suspicion is that this is a mistake, because it is a one-off comment in brackets, as if a translator is trying to explain the point that the text refers to. The reference is 1.10.18 (Pingree p.168) and reads:

You want to look at the term(s) of the Sun and the Moon and the ascendant, so that it is known whether the lord of the term is masculine or feminine (the feminine planets are Saturn, Venus and the Moon, the masculine ones the Sun, Jupiter and Mars).

It would be great to have this checked against other versions of the text Martin.

Deb

However Robert teaches this with this understanding; the masculinity or femininity of the planets in astrology exists as a conception for the soul purpose of delineation and prediction;i.e. determining the sex of children or or the sex of other people signified in the chart.

One of the problems is that many techniques that are supposed to give a prediction or delineation regarding sex are very asymmetrical and we know that it should be roughly 50%...The degrees "masculine and feminine" from Abu mashar, for example, are highly skewed to masculine. If we would use some techniques from horary, exactly as they are written, we would judge a boy much more often than we would judge a girl, and that?s why I try to use only the factors that are more evenly distributed.

best

steven wrote:Curt wrote:

In their beings the planets must be androgynous.
(Diploma Course in Medieval Astrology - Lesson Seven)

Now that you mention it, I remember Dr. Zoller saying this. I think that Schmidt influenced Zoller in some areas while staying in Cumberland back in 2007 - 2008 and I'm not sure that he stands by everything he said in the past.

However Robert teaches this with this understanding; the masculinity or femininity of the planets in astrology exists as a conception for the soul purpose of delineation and prediction;i.e. determining the sex of children or or the sex of other people signified in the chart. He further adds that to make the gender of the planets a sociological statement as some do is to get dragged off into an argument that has no relevance to an objective consideration. And, I quote,

Alright, that makes things easier. I was under the impression that knowing each planet's gender helped you to understand the kind of effect they have in certain aspects or houses... I don't know where I got that idea, but I'm glad you said that, steven.

One of the problems is that many techniques that are supposed to give a prediction or delineation regarding sex are very asymmetrical and we know that it should be roughly 50%...The degrees "masculine and feminine" from Abu mashar, for example, are highly skewed to masculine. If we would use some techniques from horary, exactly as they are written, we would judge a boy much more often than we would judge a girl, and that?s why I try to use only the factors that are more evenly distributed.

Is that a good enough reason to use Saturn as feminine when trying to judge gender? I definitely agree that the ratio should be even... But I don't want to mess myself up anymore...

Thank you everyone for your contributions so far. I apologize if this topic is old news for some of you, but its hard trying to get a good grip on the tradition when the internet is your only source. Let alone the fact that I was sucked into modern astrology for about a year, so I'm trying to forget all of that unnecessary information, and sort all this out coherently. My plan is to save money for Zoller's course, but I don't know when that will happen. I figure it wouldn't be a bad thing to have most of the basics already down, but the problem is making sure the basics I do learn and commit to memory are as "true" as possible. So thanks for your patience. I appreciate it.

In Chinese astrology -- Venus because it is identified with Metal is considered masculine and Jupiter moist, expansive is feminine