Hi Gabe,

You may have noticed in the statistics thread that I somewhat retired from my belief in astrology, but I expressly said in that thread that I wont go tormenting others about their astrological views.

Anyhow I never liked Theosophy and blaming-your-mother-for-all-your-misery-astrology.

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Edit: We were just posting at the same time Olivia. I'm sorry, I had a bit the feeling that you were angry with me. My apologies for having the wrong feeling.

Those evolvedness matters are terrible and can deeply hurt people.

Sorry got to go now, in a hurry....I have some terrible unevolved things to do, eating and drinking with people of flesh and blood.

I'm glad you put that 'with' in there, Eddy, or I might have got the wrong idea!

I agree about the spiritual evolution business. Either our souls are of God, in which case they can't evolve - first, on metaphysics, second on - how much better than 'of God' does it get? Or they might be material, in which case they might evolve, but not like that. Or they might not exist. We can't absolutely know, so these arguments do no one any favours.

So I find myself in the very strange position of being anti-evolution in most of these discussions, simply on account of the way people are abusing the word.

Theosophy was big in astrological circles in Southern California in the mid-to-late 1960s, as I'm sure Steven can attest as well.

The leftover I see too often in even non-theosophist modern astrology is the idea that a 'bad' transit will bring a shake-up in consciousness for the 'evolved soul', and a road accident, serious illness, or death of a loved one for the 'unevolved' as that's the only level we can comprehend.

And that is downright evil.

To be fair, not all modern astrologers look at it that way, but I still see too much of it for comfort.

How did that astrologer react to this major absence of significant effects of your Pluto transits?

I don't recall. It was too long ago. I may have just thrown in the towel at that point. I was having my doubts before that assignment. I do recall that I asked my brother, who remembers everything, about various dates and he couldn't come up with anything either.

When I mention this to other modern astrologers they start talking about "internal changes' or emotional transformation or some such stuff. None of that happened either.

The difficulty may be less with Pluto than it is with the idea that transits are the major predictive technique.

I have noticed Pluto transits, but, more to the point, I recognise it natally too.

More than Uranus tho, I notice Uranus transits, particularly surrounding separations.

I make no case for why some would and wouldn't notice Pluto transits (etc) but I consider it like anything else. Not everyone notices their mars or Venus transits either. In fact Venus transits tend to leave me more depressed or melancholy than anything (particularly conjunctions and opps to natal Venus) and my Venus is in Taurus so has nothing to do with its essential dignity. Venus is, however in tight partile opposition to Pluto and in my opinion my Venus is simply 'tainted' by being bound to Pluto.?

I notice my Saturn transits but have never noticed a jupiter transit. I don't think it has anything to do with 'being more conscious' or 'evolved' but I would speculate it might just be that some people relate to some planets more than others.?

Paul wrote:

In fact Venus transits tend to leave me more depressed or melancholy than anything (particularly conjunctions and opps to natal Venus) and my Venus is in Taurus so has nothing to do with its essential dignity.

Essential dignity of a planet alone doesn't automatically mean it will also manifest itself in an advantageous/pleasant manner. This highly dignified Venus may be posited in the 6th, the 8th or the 12 or rule one of these houses so what you get is a highly essentially dignified benefic turned into an unpleasant accidental malefic.

Something similar would occur if she was on the antiscia degree of Saturn or in any kind of aspect with him, combust, on Algol, retrograde - you get the picture.

Goran

cor scorpii wrote: Something similar would occur if she was on the antiscia degree of Saturn

Goran,
Just confirming: did you mean the contra-antiscion degree? I would normally regard a conjunction of a planet with the antision of Saturn or Mars as if the planet were in a trine aspect with Saturn or Mars. Is that how you would regard it too?

Mansoor

cor scorpii wrote: Essential dignity of a planet alone doesn't automatically mean it will also manifest itself in an advantageous/pleasant manner. This highly dignified Venus may be posited in the 6th, the 8th or the 12 or rule one of these houses so what you get is a highly essentially dignified benefic turned into an unpleasant accidental malefic.

Something similar would occur if she was on the antiscia degree of Saturn or in any kind of aspect with him, combust, on Algol, retrograde - you get the picture.
Goran

Yes, that's very true, and admittedly my Venus is indeed in the 6th house, about 7 degrees from the 7th house cusp. The point is more that whilst it could be seen using just traditional methods, it can also be seen using modern methods too. We cannot tell for sure which one is the more accurate. In fact this is just one example, but astrology is wide enough for either party to stretch and adjust the interpretation enough to suit their own cause. Going back to what I was saying previous, imagine I didn't notice my Jupiter transits, would I then say that Jupiter isn't really to be a considered a planet and that therefore Neptune really must be the real ruler of Pisces? It wouldn't make sense. Similarly just because you do not notice your Pluto transits wouldn't mean that modern astrology is therefore a whole load of crap - it's non-sequitor logic as there could be a whole host of differing reasons as to why this might be (none of which might have anything to do with 'consciousness' or anything else). In other words, that you do not notice pluto transits etc does not mean that modern astrology is irrelevant any more than someone not noticing a jupiter transit would mean that traditional astrology is irrelevant.

I think some people just have a particular relationship with particular planets which cause them to notice their transits more keenly than other planets.

Something similar would occur if she was on the antiscia degree of Saturn

I seee, personally I would not consider antiscia degrees of Saturn as indicating melancholy, more like indicating seriousness or caution etc.

Hello Mansoor,

you wrote:

Goran,
Just confirming: did you mean the contra-antiscion degree? I would normally regard a conjunction of a planet with the antision of Saturn or Mars as if the planet were in a trine aspect with Saturn or Mars. Is that how you would regard it too?

As far as I know about traditional understanding of antiscia, the conjunction is regarded as conjunction, not as any other kind of influence - the most famous instance coming to my mind is that of Hitler who had Saturn from the 10th in Leo in exact conjunction by antiscia with Venus/Mars in Taurus.

The only instance of usage of other aspects to the point of antiscia I'm aware of is in Firmicus Maternus's "Matheseos Libri" where he delineates a chart using almost exclusively antiscia - in all aspects.

Of course, there's also the contra-antiscia which is similar, only in my understanding carrying a bit more hostile influence akin to that of 'real' opposition.

Paul wrote:

The point is more that whilst it could be seen using just traditional methods, it can also be seen using modern methods too.

I'm sure it can, I've seen it all - if Pluto&co can't explain something, then we have Chiron, Quaoar and a host of other 'somethings' - including such nonsensical ideas as "hypothetical planets." As already stated, that's the reason I quit modern approach. Now not all modern astrologers use all of these tools, but that's just one more reason to label 'modern approach' as inconsistent,random, lacking any meaningful structure and system - for the most part.

But hey, live and let others live is one of my mottoes - if I can say that modern astrology is full of nonsense, I allow for the same freedom of expression toward its traditional parent. Although both carry the name 'astrology', the former is in my opinion just a watered down hybrid of the latter.

Going back to what I was saying previous, imagine I didn't notice my Jupiter transits, would I then say that Jupiter isn't really to be a considered a planet and that therefore Neptune really must be the real ruler of Pisces?

Again, typical of modern understanding of transits. Transits alone, without taking into account the radical state and esse of the respective planet as well as the current rulerships (firdar, profections, solar return, bound lord of the dircted ascendant, et.) often don't say anything. Why?Because they're not influential enough as a stand-alone factor!They do serve as a trigger which 'causes' events but only when more weighty factors point in the same direction.
Moreover, transiting Jupiter in Pisces (its current position) which is occidental is less powerful in its significations/influence than an oriental one - but this understanding of cycles with the Sun is also, for the most, part lost in modern approach. The same goes for a dignified planet but retrograde, etc.

The fact that someone doesn't feel the influence of Jupiter has absolutely nothing to do with its rulership in Pisces, but with the factors I mentioned above. Neptune rules nothing - try using him in a horary delineation instead of Jupiter and you'll understand why. And a planetary principle should be able to manifest its influence in all branches of astrology if it is to be seriously regarded as one - I find the explanation that horary is just so focused on a short periods of time and concrete, precise questions so "the outer planets cannot/shouldn't be pressed into it" as...well, you know what I mean

But again, that's just my 'unenlightened' take on this - however, I'm glad to have left the 'enlightened' one behind me.
Contrary to the prevailing modern conviction and assertion, I neither think all the roads have the same value nor can they lead to the same aim.

personally I would not consider antiscia degrees of Saturn as indicating melancholy, more like indicating seriousness or caution etc.

Ok, but when considering the influence of a planet I usually strive not to leave any of its significations out - which make sense in the context of a given delineation, of course. Since Saturn has a very strong signification toward melancholy/sorrow, I do not see a reason to regard antiscia with him as not bearing such effects as well.

Regards
Goran

I used to believe that the theosophic breed had died out before the '60s. So I couldn't imagine that the evolved soul stuff would have been the failsafe. I would have expected that the astrologer Tom spoke about would either simply have been surprized or would have said that transits mainly work when there's a secondary progression involved.

I already mentioned a few days ago that I was involved in a thread somewhere else in which the initiator of the thread argued that (briefly said) the higher a planet above the horizon or deep below it is placed the higher the soul is evolved. When I pointed out that born people at high northern latitudes and with Sagittarius/Capricornus as MC will never have high or low planets his mystification had collapsed and the initiator never showed up/off on the subject anymore. People replied/pm'ed me to say how relieved they felt since they had those 'flat charts' with no high or low planets and felt deeply worried about not being 'evolved'.

Because of this delusion me too I'm anti-evolution and I believe that evolution finds its expression in behaviour, not in the chart. I'm glad to find mainly normal thinking people over here.

The leftover I see too often in even non-theosophist modern astrology is the idea that a 'bad' transit will bring a shake-up in consciousness for the 'evolved soul', and a road accident, serious illness, or death of a loved one for the 'unevolved' as that's the only level we can comprehend.

That's indeed a big evil because it blames the victim. I read somewhere that modern astrology can be even more deterministic than traditional because although mainly on the 'emotional' level, modern astrology can state several points as indisputable facts. It possibly is this view that inadvertently has affected me that made a sceptical stance quite attractive. I didn't want to be subordinate to transits anymore and in the past nine years I've even torn an ephemeris to little pieces three or four times. I just didn't want live with the idea that an endless serie of difficult transits was there waiting for me in the future. I had namely calculated the the probability of having a hard aspect transit of a planet from Saturn to Pluto is at least one every year. I can imagine that Saturn alone is already enough.

While many modern astrologers are okay it's indeed possible to trace theosophic ideas throughout the literature. I read some theosophical things and two books of Rudhyar and linguistically I can recognize the similar use of language in modern books/articles. Even though I read the Rudhyar books in Dutch I recognized this linguistic similarity when written in English.

Tom wrote:When I mention this to other modern astrologers they start talking about "internal changes' or emotional transformation or some such stuff. None of that happened either.

During my observations I rarely experienced these ?transformations?. Rather than change during a transit I concluded that transits were a mere temporary thing, before and after the experiences of stressful feelings things would remain the same. This is a bit disappointing, hence it's better to work on change yourself. I considered the effects of transits as squeezing one of those 'stress-balls', when you let loose the stress-ball regains its original shape again.

Despite all this, I use to believe in the effectiveness of Pluto transits. Although I made several attempts to kick out this little chap and trying to find other astrological explanations (Saturn transits, directions, progressions) in several cases a Pluto transit was the only thing to be found and quite in a clear way. Dismissing the effect of Pluto as imaginative placed me for a problem. If Pluto would have simply been an imagination, what about my experiences with other transits? This caused some inner struggle so most of the time I decided to keep Pluto in. However now many Pluto-like objects have been discovered close to his orbit, I found myself placed for another problem. Here?s an observation of this of increasing use of new planetary bodies by a practitioner of Indian astrology ?The fallacy of the trans-Saturnian planets? http://shyamasundaradasa.com/jyotish/re ... icles.html

I?d like to make one last point about the evolution issue. Once I read an article of an astrologer who couldn?t find a trace of any effect of (outer) planet transits in his grandmother who was a very stable person, never complained and worked hard the whole of her life, the kind of people which aren?t made anymore these days. I noticed similar things with the ineffectiveness of transits on my mother. So rather than seeing the perception of outer planet transits as a sign of high evolution of the soul, I tended to see the perception of outer planet transits rather as a sign of instability. So there?s another reason why I would see it as attractive not to be affected by outer planet transits.

The fact that some modern astrologers, in addition to the outer planets, also use a host of other celestial bodies in a way that is astrologically meaningful to them, does not change the question. The question remains: what makes a celestial body or influence meaningful in astrological terms? Mercury is a small planet, yet noone would deny the significance of Mercury in the chart.

I tended to see the perception of outer planet transits rather as a sign of instability

May have something to do with instability but I would propose a much simpler solution/explanation (the principle of Ocam's rasor) - if they're not felt, it is most probably because they don't exist astrologically.

Goran

Goran

You're missing my point entirely. You say "Again, typical of modern understanding of transits." but actually I've not described transits whatsoever nor my impression of what they mean anywhere in my post let alone that portion of my post that you've quoted from, so it seems disingenuous to suggest that A) my post reflects modern understandings of transits, and B) and that it is flawed. The only thing I've posted is that in a hypothetical scenario, imagine were I to not notice my Jupiter transits then it would be illogical for me to denounce Jupiter as being a 'real' planet, also illogical to consider traditional planets as being irrelevant. Similarly then in a hypothetical scenario, why would I denounce Pluto as being irrelevant or, even worse, the entirety of modern astrology of which the inclusion of pluto is just one small part - it is surely just as equally illogical.

Transits alone, without taking into account the radical state and esse of the respective planet as well as the current rulerships (firdar, profections, solar return, bound lord of the dircted ascendant, et.) often don't say anything.

Which is irrelevant when considering whether or not one notices a transit of an outer planet - or, to put it better, this is true regardless of whether we are looking at Mercury or at Pluto (of course Pluto does not have rulerships that we can examine). To make the point even simpler, if someone does not notice their Uranus transits, then I might well counter that they haven't taken into account the radical state of the respective planet as well as the current rulerships etc. What's good for one is good for another - but notice that I've not mentioned whether or not I've taken these into account or not, and therefore any speculation to the contrary is just that: speculation. In fact what I'm trying to point here is the gap in logic that is occurring within any suggestion that because one does not notice a planet that modern astrology utilises, that the entirety or majority of modern astrology is flawed by conclusion - because this logic is surely fallacious.

The fact that someone doesn't feel the influence of Jupiter has absolutely nothing to do with its rulership in Pisces, but with the factors I mentioned above.

Precisely. That's my very point. It's illogical to jump from someone not noticing a transit of a planet, to then making conclusion about it such as that, for example, Jupiter should not be considered a real planet, or, that Jupiter shouldn't rule a sign, or anythign else. The only conclusion we can draw from it is that that person does not notice that planetary transit. Any other conclusions that we draw from it are not rested on sound logic. It is equally illogical to say that "I have not noticed any Jupiter transits therefore traditional astrology is wrong" as it is to say "I have not noticed my Pluto transits, therefore modern astrology is wrong". I hope that makes sense. Any further rationales are somewhat irrelevant to the question "have you noticed them or not" - either you have or you haven't, any theories that you formulate after that observation may or may not be based upon anything real.

if Pluto&co can't explain something, then we have Chiron, Quaoar and a host of other 'somethings' - including such nonsensical ideas as "hypothetical planets."

Exactly, it seems like clutching at straws right? Similarly then traditional astrologers can equally clutch at straws with their own methods going into further details than they might ordinarily. Both are guilty of doing this. That you understand or appreciate the rationale of one camp more than the other does not mean that both are not guilty of this. To the casual outsider not affiliated with either camp, both would appear to be doing the very same thing, if it's not the presence of makemake or sedna, then its the prsence of a contra-antiscion to a particular time lord etc.