I misunderstood things as I had understood that the Almuten figure of a chart was the planet in the horoscope with the most dignities, but I now understand that to be the Lord of the Geniture and that the Almuten figure of the chart is the planet with only the most essential dignities. It still is Saturn in my chart - on the Lily point scoring system it scores 8. So am I right in thinking this dignified state can then be utilized most successfully if the planet is also in a strong position and this would be taken from the accidental dignities?

Tom I found what you were saying about 5 degrees Libra interesting as this is my Ascendant degree. Does Saturn being the Almuten of the rising degree have any influence over how the rising degree might manifest itself? Venus is in detriment as in your example.

Marilu

This is absolutely no unaspected Mercury in H9. Furthermore there is a highly strong trine to his gemini Ascendant, so the ruler of his Ascendant is supporting with a trine!

Please. The part of fortune? The ASC? I'm sure there is an asteroid in aspect to Mercury plus a couple of hypotheticals, too. That's just common sense. If you make the definitions loose enough or restrictive enough as the mood fits, then of course it will always turn out the "right" way.

Not even Noel Tyl, hardly a traditional astrologer, uses minor aspects or points to prevent his definition of peregrine. You're on stronger ground with Neptune (I don't have it on my computer print out) a genuinely useless planet.

I was going to ask for a demonstration of a useless planet and was about to suggest Marilyn Monroe's Pluto, but it is conjunct a node. So please provide a chart with a planet you consider unaspected and demonstrate it uselessness.

Tom

Hi all,

To answer the original question about which planet is a ruler, there are many answers how you define "ruler", but let's define for this topic "ruler" as "ruler of the horoscope", that is usually a difficult job to do. So my former answers were related only to the ruler of the horoscope.
And there I wrote that in order to be ruler of the chart, the planet MUST have aspects, otherwise it can never be a ruler. The ruler decides, it influences most in critical times, etc. so the ruler is of course the most important planet otherwise we should not have to call it the ruler.

A planet without aspects can never be the ruler of the horoscope. Who contradics that statement should do a re-study of astrology, that's my opinion.

Now of course a several horoscopes you will find planets that have no aspects. They will work nevertheless, because a planet will always work, that's his function, but in comparison with other planets it can never be more important, it will play a minor role.

Sure there can be many definitions of an unaspected planet. You can say you will only use major (Ptolemeic) aspects, but there is also a very large group of astrologers that use some of the minor aspects too, which is not per definition wrong to do.

Read Jean-Baptiste Morin, read Vehlow, no small astrologers, also used minor aspects, this is no crime.
I use the semi sextile, semi square, 135 and 150 as the only minor aspects with restricted orbs with a maximum of 1,5 degrees.

I don't use meteorites, Cheiron and the like. I never did and never will. I am quite reasonable when handling aspects, using ever conservative orbs. But from the beginning I used the modern planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and in my 1800 horoscopes and hundreds of clients I was always able to make predictions on those planets that worked with a few days difference. I can produce hundreds of examples of real clients having experienced events exactly on those dates of aspects.
But there will always be differences of view between all astrologers which also seems to be the case here.

Finally coming to the horoscope of Martin Luther King, I made the following: There you have all the aspects. Venus has 3, some planets have more, Uranus has none. Note that I also use parallels of declination as an aspect. You cannot ignore them, they also work, even with progressions, so each parallel counts as an aspect.
I would not say here that Venus is unaspected. Here role is not less than Mars' role. The fact that she is exalted and in a fortunate house says a lot.

Now here follows the horoscope with the progressions for 4-4-1968 the date of his unfortunate death. See how closely Venus squares the MC, she is working from the hidden 12th house from Aries (guns, shooting from hidden places). With a few minues extra time the square would be exact. You could not say that Venus did not work here, she represents his "life".

Now we should try to focus on the original question about the ruler and how to determine that. which is no easy task.