waybread wrote:I personally see all of the planets as having positive and negative potentials. A nice trine from Pluto might be very beneficial to someone. Similarly, Saturn has circumstances in which it can be very positive. (Whoops! I think some traditional astrologers of yore indicated as much. )

I don't think that the division between malefics or benefics should be interpreted too strictly. Although some planets are related with difficulties, some of these can be overcome. Here's what Kepler said about it:

Kepler wrote:11. MALEFICS AND BENEFICS

11-1 God did not create human beings until after he had created the planets. From there God proceeded to shape humankind. It would have been quite easy for Him to form us in such a way that we would have to deal only with the well-tempered Jupiter, and that we would experience Saturn or Mars as little as we would a dead stone. Thus it must be good and holy that man experiences not only well-tempered Jupiter, but also cold Saturn and hot Mars. And the latter two harm him as little as black gall and bile within his body. Both these humors [fluids] are decried by ordinary physicians as excrements, just as Saturn and Mars are decried as evil planets... I cannot conceive that bile would be an excrement, but rather a necessary substance that is part of the nutritional substances that flow through the blood vessels.

Source:Kenneth G. Negus: Kepler's Astrology http://cura.free.fr/docum/15kep-en.html All rights reserved ? 1987-2001 Kenneth G. Negus

On the other side, I think that trines aren't always pleasant. I sometimes even think that aspects are rather neutral, just signifying relationship, and that the main interpretation comes from the planets involved.

By the way, with Kepler's quote in mind, one could wonder whether Pluto (or any other new body) is just a 'dead stone' without soul or something essential, previously unknown waiting to be discovered.

Hi Eddy-- Kepler had some precedent in Hebrews 12:6: "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."

Accordingly, a grand trine is not our friend!

Pluto carries the energy of killing off something (metaphorically) dead or dying so that new growth can take its place. The process may be brutal, but this is probably because most of us resist change, and are very attached to old forms, even if they no longer support us. A Pluto transit is a good time to clean out the basement, end a stressful relationship that has dragged on far to long, or resign from a soul-destroying job.

Several years ago when transiting Pluto hit my IC (opposed my MC and squared my AC/DC) I actually quit my career of 31 years (MC), we cleared out and painted our basement (underworld), sold our house (IC) and moved to the other side of Canada. The change of course had its stresses, but was on the whole extremely positive. This convinced me that Pluto transits go better if people take some responsibility for them and "help" them along.

I don't see Saturn as the Great Malefic because its lessons are things like hard work, patience, being highly realistic, and getting by on very little. If people can do this, then I think Saturn offers some rewards--though possibily later in life.

waybread wrote:Hebrews 12:6:

That explains a few things in my life, although sometimes I then could do with a bit less love I think.

One of the reasons I want to get rid of Pluto is the fact that there are some 150 known Pluto like objects with a 2:3 orbital resonance (with Neptune, the Plutino's, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutino and much more. This is simply too much but using only Pluto, knowing that these others are there, seems not reasonable. Perhaps Pluto did work and served its purpose for threequarter of a century but has stopped working since his closest lookalikes were discovered.

Although getting rid of Uranus and Neptune on basis of their invisibility seems reasonable, their big sizes make them not easy to dismiss, so I might keep them in. There are also big planets near other stars so therefore distance might also be a factor, limiting the use of our solar system bodies alone. On basis of the rule of Titius-Bode (also mentioned in the Assignation of outer planets rulerships thread) one might also kick out Neptune but at the same time had to include the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Kepler used the five regular solids around the orbits. Since there are not more than five regular solids, this might give another reason to use only the traditional seven. So for me it would be either the regular solids view or the size view although some might consider the latter view as somewhat too physicalist. This might also be impossible since the four known physical forces of physics are too weak to explain astrological effects.

Eddy wrote:

waybread wrote:Hebrews 12:6:

That explains a few things in my life, although sometimes I then could do with a bit less love I think.

Couldn't we all? As a wise friend once told me: 'If anyone ever says "This is for your own good", don't stay to hear the rest -- run!'

waybread wrote:Yikes, Paul! Is that you?

Yup! I get around. I tend to read more than post on this forum though!

Tougher audience.

- Ed

Eddy wrote:Although getting rid of Uranus and Neptune on basis of their invisibility seems reasonable, their big sizes make them not easy to dismiss, so I might keep them in. There are also big planets near other stars so therefore distance might also be a factor, limiting the use of our solar system bodies alone.

The problem I see with Uranus and Neptune is not their obvious status as planets; nor their visibility -- we count daytime planets, planets beneath the horizon -- but rather their scale.

Most people fall short of seeing a Uranus return. Neptune was discovered in, what was it, 1848? It only came back to the same place it was in Aquarius when it was found a couple years ago.

The astrology synthesized in Hellenistic Greece didn't come out of nowhere. It was synthesized and systematized based on the fruits of 2000 years of observation of the faster moving planets.

Now, to practice astrology is to reject to at least some extent the idea of coincidence. There might be the hand of Providence in the names (goodbye, Herschel; though Uranus has to be one of the least colorful bit players in Greek mythology) and also in the meanings that have gelled around them. Neptune was a sounder choice for a name; we can at least be certain that the planet is moist.

That doesn't get around the other problem, though. The cycles of these planets are not drawn to human scale. Their proper motion is so slow, they are retrograde almost half the year. Whatever their cycles mean, it's on a very long term historical scale. Jupiter/Saturn patterns are supposed to indicate major, long term geopolitical phenomena. Whatever these planets' cycles are about, it's bigger than that.

Eddy wrote:....Although I made several attempts to kick out this little chap.... I recently felt it would be better for me to kick out Pluto.... I didn't mean to give the impression that I want to kick out the transits. It's only about Pluto (and probably Uranus and Neptune).... one might also kick out Neptune but at the same time had to include the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.

With all this kicking going on, I am torn between considering you as....

(a) an interplanetary bouncer ('oi, planet! Yer name's not down, yer not comin' in! Get outta my pub!')

or

(b) an interplanetary footballer gearing up for the season



PS Sorry I have nothing to contribute today except silliness... don't blame me, blame my infernal Pluto transits and keep me away from matches

handn wrote:With all this kicking going on, I am torn between considering you as....

About 10 years ago I practised a bit Muay Thai, kickboxing, using also knees. Now with Pluto in the 'leg' signs of the iatromathematica I must be feeling the effects.

SteveGus wrote: The cycles of these planets are not drawn to human scale.

This is also a good criterion for choice of planets. Only Saturn and the faster planets can have returns during average human life and perhaps be 'knowable' for individuals.

Ed F wrote:Tougher audience.

- Ed

Plus less need to speak.

SteveGus wrote:The astrology synthesized in Hellenistic Greece didn't come out of nowhere. It was synthesized and systematized based on the fruits of 2000 years of observation of the faster moving planets.

I don't agree with this. There is no "body of astrological knowledge" that has been systematically tested for 2000 years. It leads to the impression that the transmission was continuous which is highly misleading. The Hellenistic tradition is largely a theoretical construct. Evidence for this can be found in numerous places but Schmidt gives an excellent argument on the formation of lots (Arabic parts) and how it is not plausible that they came from observation. Hellenistic astrology came into being in a fairly short amount of time around the 2nd century BCE.

The ancients were not innovators in general. Although we see evidence of Valens tinkering with some techniques to make them work better, generally it is the case that the breaks in the transmission caused the greater differences primarily, not observation. Valens method of zodiacal releasing for instance is one method not practiced anywhere in the intervening 1800 years until 1995. It didn't get dropped because it didn't work; it was dropped because information was very scarce in historical Egypt and there was no internet to keep the transmission of information alive. Books get burned, pieces of paper get lost, people forget and then future generations have to guess what the ancients meant.

Good points, zoidsoft! Put differently, I agree with you.

I can really understand why traditional astrologers don't like Pluto, other outers, or asteroids. It is impossible to fit them into the astrologies (plural intentional) that developed prior to the discovery of Uranus. Domciles for the outers work for me, and possibly detriments in their opposite signs; but not the other detailed assessments of planets that a traditional astrologer would make.

I think there are some non-arguments about Pluto.

1. The complexity of the solar system as we now understand it. If heavenly bodies have an impact on human lives through whatever means, then their effects are not constrained by the limits of human brains to comprehend them.

2. The "visible" light problem. Of course the outers cast visible light. This is how they were discovered! Nobody could detect a planet with a telescope unless it cast visible light. So maybe this is a "naked eye visible light" problem. But I find it contradictory that individuals who enhance their communication abilities through computers and telephones; who enhance their mobility through cars, bicycles, or mass trinsit; or who put on a winter coat to enhance their body's ability to regulate its temperature--balk at the idea of enhancing our visual acuity through comparable technologies like telescopes.

I cannot imagine that if the traditional astrologers of the past had access to telescopes, they would not have used them. They used other technologies available to them, such as astrolabes.

Moreover, the outers were predicted through mathematics before they were discovered, due to their gravitational pull on their neighbouring planet. Many astrologers in the past used mathematics to predict various points in the horoscope.

3. The length of cycle problem. Traditional astrologers of the past were aware of precession of the equinoxes and the "great year" which nobody was going to experience in its entirety. They worked with progressed charts, in which no planet other than the moon could complete a cycle. People didn't live so long until modern times. Many people would not live to experience a complete Saturn cycle back when the average life expectancy was less than 29 years (as it was in ancient Rome if you factor in infant mortality.)

But more than that, to me this is a sort of "so what?" problem? What really is the reason not to use a long-cycle orbiting planet? What is the explanation of why it should matter? Sure, they're slow. But in life as in modern astrology, many life issues are generational, not individual.

4. The "modern psychological astrology" problem. Extravagant claims have been made about the outers by **some** modern astrologers. Actually I think the number of modern astrologers who would claim the "psychological" part is relatively small, Liz Greene notwithstanding. But MPsA seems to be a convenient target for whatever **some** traditionalists dislike about modern astrology more generally. I, for one, think that the claims about Pluto made by Jeffrey Wolf Green on Pluto are incorrect. This doesn't mean we need to throw out Pluto, it means we need to be judicious in our assessment of claims about Pluto.

And this is true about traditional astrology, as well. One might admire the techniques taught by Vettius Valens (Anthologies, book I), for example, without believing that "Saturn makes those born under him petty, malignant, care-worn,...deceitful, secretive in their trickery...sqalid, black-clad...with a nautical bent, plying waterside trades."

You kind of have to pick and choose.