Hi,

As for whether signs themselves have psychological attributes, I would say yes--Ptolemy, for instance, wanted us to look at the quadruplicities in particular for examine this. So if the angles and other important places (like the sect light, etc) were in fixed signs, this should say something different than if they were in movable ones. So if Scorpio is rising, then yes: what Scorpio means by triplicity and quadruplicity, but also through its rulership by Mars, can all be taken in a psychological way. (But other things affecting Scorpio and Mars will also matter, too.) I think the first part of Bil Tierney's book All Around the Zodiac is excellent in how it tries to reconstruct the signs using triplicities and quadruplicities (though I think he goes a little astray in treating Libra and Capricorn as though they were like the 7th and 10th houses).

I sense in some of James's comments some questions/issues that go a bit deeper, namely: How much of the chart can reasonably be said to encompass psychology? And can any short list of items to look at really explain who we are? I may be misunderstanding James's meaning but since they are interesting questions anyway, let me address them briefly just in case.

I guess my view is based roughly on the following three ideas:

The chart is a picture of everything, not just the mind.
Not everything in the chart is equally relevant.
Skepticism about what is even meant by "psychology."

So what we have to do is figure out (1) what things could reasonably indicate something like character, and (2) which among those are the most important. So, anything related to the Ascendant and its lord would certainly count. But we have to start somewhere, and be able to stop somewhere before we drive ourselves crazy or lose track of what we are looking for. If we only stuck with the rising sign (or, like many people, obsessed over the Sun sign), that would be too little. Looking at James's Scorpio, with the Moon in it, and Mars in the 3rd in Capricorn, would be even better. Valens describes several Lots which are clearly about the mind and character, and I could understand looking at those if one really wanted to be thorough. But if I was taking a class on looking at character in the chart, and the teacher said, "But be sure to look at the sesquiquadrate of Uranus, and see if it falls on the contra-antiscion of the midpoint of any two asteroids," I would feel like something had gone really wrong.

My skepticism about psychology isn't really about being partisan in favor of traditional, because there was plenty of stuff we would call psychological in traditional astrology. A lot of it has to do with what "psychology" even means. My view--which I think a lot of people can intuitively agree with--is that "who we are" is a combination of internal factors that are also in constant negotiation and response to, things that happen in life. Now, if the chart were simply or primarily a picture of the soul or mind, then because the nativity is with us all our lives, we should expect that all of those psychological traits are with us all the time. But they are not. The more reliable and lasting ones should be those connected with the Ascendant and its lord. But other features only appear because the chart shows some objective things which we react to, absorb the lessons of, and so on, which need to be handled in a different way by the astrologer. They are often predictable events that only happen at certain times.

For example, I have had several clients with very difficult Lots of Fortune in the angles, in bad aspects to malefics in poor condition. What this means is that fundamental areas of their lives (the angles) are unstable and undergo a lot of change due to things they cannot foresee--they come out of the blue. For the clients, this often leads to a fundamental sense of insecurity and uncertainty because of the instability of life. This is not something that would normally appear in a list of "The 5 psychological indicators in the chart," because we are talking about real events that people are trying to cope with, not a natural indicator of emotions (like the Moon) or character (like the Ascendant and its lord). But it is a very notable thing with predictable consequences for the average person.

Well, I sort of feel like I'm rambling now, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. I hope these comments at least clarify where I'm coming from, if they don't exactly answer the original question.

Best,
Ben

ben,

thanks so much for offering your perspective here. much of it resonates with me. an astrologer has to start somewhere in understanding the chart. the sign on the ascendant and it's ruler is a good place. for a different example, but also relevant i think - donna cunningham focuses on the ascendant, sun and moon.. maybe it was tracy marks - one of these two astrologers as memory serves. it is also a good point of departure but different and more modern. the issue of planets aspecting the ascendant, moon or sun are important too, but i suppose it could be argued that not everything can be important at the same time. prioritizing becomes an issue that is a way resolving this.

it is interesting what you say about the part of fortune and it's possible role in all of this. i've repeatedly said on the forum how arabic parts remind me a lot of midpoints.. they're different, but i continue to see parallels. while the arabic parts, specifically the part of fortune take the distance differential between the sun and moon and apply it to the ascendant creating a point the same distance from the ascendant ( and reverses the process depending on whether the chart is diurnal or nocturnal ), in the case of the pof in the ascendant angle - a person is born at a new or full moon approx.. if a planet is aspecting the pof in these examples, they will also be directly aspecting the sun/moon. this brings me to a view i hold that planets aspecting the sun and moon are also quite relevant, but it would be much more immediately visible for a person working with the pof when the pof lands on the ascendant axis for this reason...

i would argue that a planet hitting the sun/moon midpoint has a big influence on the psychology of the person too..

we are still left with the issue of how one prioritizes the chart to gain a better understanding of what it implies. we see astrologers doing this all the time actually.. a few obvious examples include the use of planets beyond saturn or not, asteriods or not, new planets or not, non ptolemiac aspects or not, different house systems/zodiac systems or not, arabic points or not, midpoints or not and etc. etc.. astrology remains an individualistic art as i see it, although teachers working at standardizing some of it have to communicate to students what they feel best prioritizes there own values on these topics, including the topic of reading psychology into a chart. i agree with much of your post and appreciate you stating it openly here, including what i've shared again below.. thanks - james

Ben wrote: I guess my view is based roughly on the following three ideas:

The chart is a picture of everything, not just the mind.
Not everything in the chart is equally relevant.
Skepticism about what is even meant by "psychology."

I think one crucial point to take away from Ben's post is that, there comes a point when there is too much information to consider, many of which are less relevant to the person's life, and therefore not as helpful to analyse.

Personally, I also look at the Ascendant and its Lord for determining character. It seems that in Hellenistic texts the Moon (and its Lord) is also rather important for personality analysis, but I haven't been able to incorporate that so far. I've not found the Sun to be helpful for personality, aside from being part of a technique for determining the masculinity/femininity of a person.

One other challenge has to do with the fact that some parts of our character/personality changes as we go through life. How do we determine what changes and what doesn't? I have no answers, only suggestions. Perhaps the Ascendant signifies how we are like early in life, while its Lord shows how our character changes over time. This is still too simplistic though...like, when does the change occur?

Be(e)n contemplating this thread for a few days; did some extra reading and listening. Just wanted to throw this out there, see what you guys think.

I?ve always seen the Ascendant / Chart Ruler as our physical body, the ship we sail in; the vehicle we should use in order to travel towards the truth, our Sun; our Soul.

I think the Moon is the only psychological point in our horoscope. Habits and behaviours are a direct result of our psychological make-up. Moon is our ego, our mind. If the Moon travels the most degrees, and goes through the most phases each month, it can be the only body that matches the continual daily/weekly/monthly evolution of our ever changing psychology, based on the exposure to the 5 elements; the material world.

So what impacts our Moon the most; aspects, the sign, the house, the fixed star?

I now see how the POF would influence our psychology and it is an interesting lesson; thank you, Ben.