waybread wrote: If you don't use asteroids, then I am unclear as to why you should associate it with Phaeton .

I use the planets Jupiter and Mars, but not their Moons.

I am not saying that Phobos and Demos aren't interesting, and worth producing ephemerides for, but that is a separate study, and they for the most part are represented by Mars.

Part of what bugs me about asteroids is there are millions of the things, with arbitrary names probably often made up to suit whatever the new age astrologer is wanting to say, and often these people don't bother to look at the actual chart, considering their universal pat answers to everything more important and the asteroids convenient for this. I hate seeing their squiggles all over a chart, one looks a bit like Venus and you can't read the chart properly. I hate seeing them in the main section of an ephemeris, often taking space from Chiron.

House cusp rulers are important in all kinds of astrology. I normally use Placidus houses, where the house cusp ruler is likely to be different than a planet's sign ruler.

The principle is that "the house over which a planet rules serves the purposes of the house in which that planet stands." (Karen Hamaker-Zondag, The House Connection.) If we are interested, for example, in a person's career and see the 10th house cusp in Leo, with the sun in the 9th, that person's career might best focus on 9th house matters such as overseas travel. Modernly, the condition of the planetary ruler would be judged by its aspects. But really, the house rulership principle goes back to Hellenistic astrology.

I am currently reading Demetra George, Astrology and the Authentic Self. She promotes an interesting hybrid of modern and traditional western astrology. She does use whole signs. Her take is a little different: that if you are interested in matters of a particular house, look at the planet ruling the cusp (sign.) This planet is trying to promote the affairs of the house in question, but its ability to do so fruitfully depends on the planet's own condition as defined by its essential dignity and "good" or "bad" house position. If the 10th house is ruled by the sun, but the sun is in the dumpster in Aquarius (detriment, out of sect) in the "bad" 6th house, then the sun is hampered in its efforts to promote the native's career.

So this is one thing to look at with the "Libran generals" hypothesis.

Just to get back to (cough, ahem) Eris, the "house connection" is another reason why sign rulerships in modern astrology still truly need to be based upon something more than some kind of thematic affinity. Because even if you personally get good interpretive results without reference to house cusp rulers, most modern astrologers beyond a beginner/intermediate level do use them for all kinds of interpretation. (Traditional astrologers would not use Eris as a sign ruler, although they might read it as an additional data point.)

And it really muddies things when we add in imaginary astronomies that have no basis either in scientific astronomy or time-tested astrological traditions. Or when we start conflating various celebrity careers such as generals and heads of state. Or when we fail to realize how fame or notoriety vary by culture, distance, and time from the events.

Asteroids began to be named ca. 1800 with the discovery of Ceres. The oldest asteroids were mostly given the Roman names of figures from Greek mythology, following the tradition set by planets. More recently discovered asteroids are named after all kinds of people, mythological figures, places, and things. The official names are approved by the International Astronomical Union-- a major scientific organization; not by New Agers.

It is very clear to me that Pluto rules Aries. If one reads Carl Payne Tobey's discovery back in 1933 he found that planetary order of Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn followed the astronomical order of Average Mean Distance for Earth. Astrologer's maintained this order unconsciously with the discovery of Uranus and Neptune. It was only with Pluto that confusion reigned and the majority of astrologers assigned Pluto to Scorpio. But assigning Pluto to Aries would maintain this ancient order in a coincidence in the order of 6,600,000 to one. This is re-examined in my book, Foundations of Astrology.

With the discovery of Eris in 2005, here is a new planetoid the size of Pluto and slightly larger with a moon and outside the orbit of Pluto. This is a likely candidate for the natural ruler of Taurus. That also means that there is one more planetoid beyond Eris that could rule Gemini. There is a Facebook page called Eris Followers for people to post comments on Eris.

I also do not give value to the story of myths regarding planets. Uranus is a perfect example. Read it's history under Wikipedia. It was 80 years before it was given it's permanent name. It was first named for King George and the for Hershel.

It is by the examination of transits to Eris and mundane events that will show Eris' true nature. Natal charts may show characteristics but it's hard to find a chart that has a stand along Eris that is prominent to isolate the quality of Eris. Please remember that Eris has been in Aries since the 1920's so it's hard to compare generations of people with Eris in different signs too.

Thanks, Naomi. I can only say that my experiences are very different. There is another thread on the Uranus-Pluto debate, which of course didn't resolve anything.

naomibennett9 wrote:It is very clear to me that Pluto rules Aries. If one reads Carl Payne Tobey's discovery back in 1933 he found that planetary order of Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn followed the astronomical order of Average Mean Distance for Earth. Astrologer's maintained this order unconsciously with the discovery of Uranus and Neptune. It was only with Pluto that confusion reigned and the majority of astrologers assigned Pluto to Scorpio. But assigning Pluto to Aries would maintain this ancient order in a coincidence in the order of 6,600,000 to one. This is re-examined in my book, Foundations of Astrology.

Although I experimented with this scheme for awhile, one of the problems I have with it is that the underworld deity Pluto seems to be a much better match for gloomy Scorpio than for extraverted Aries.

With the discovery of Eris in 2005, here is a new planetoid the size of Pluto and slightly larger with a moon and outside the orbit of Pluto. This is a likely candidate for the natural ruler of Taurus.

What about the other plutoids? There are already more celestial bodies with that status than signs to assign them to. And Haumea, although a little smaller than Pluto and Eris, has moons as well.

The way I see it, Pluto represents the entire Kuiper belt. That he is the brightest of those objects is a hint here.

Some astronomers still believe that there are unknown major planets far out in the solar system. And there are in fact certain indications for that.

That also means that there is one more planetoid beyond Eris that could rule Gemini.

However, Mercury seems to be an excellent match for Gemini. Although I consider him the co-ruler of Virgo much like I think of Pluto as the co-ruler of Aries. So I expect Taurus and Virgo to get new main rulers one day. The resulting scheme is not as simple as the one suggested by you, but it is symmetrical in its own right and actually suggests the double serpent wand of Hermes overlaid on the domicile scheme.

There is a Facebook page called Eris Followers for people to post comments on Eris.

I also do not give value to the story of myths regarding planets. Uranus is a perfect example. Read it's history under Wikipedia. It was 80 years before it was given it's permanent name. It was first named for King George and the for Hershel.

The difference here is that Eris was given a mythological name already by the astronomers' community, and it is very unlikely that this will still be changed. The mythology around the other name giving deities in Astrology seems meaningful indeed, but Eris just doesn't sound like it had much to do with Taurus.

It is by the examination of transits to Eris and mundane events that will show Eris' true nature. Natal charts may show characteristics but it's hard to find a chart that has a stand along Eris that is prominent to isolate the quality of Eris. Please remember that Eris has been in Aries since the 1920's so it's hard to compare generations of people with Eris in different signs too.

I agree that we didn't have as much opportunity to make empirical observations regarding Eri yet as we had with the established planets. However, bear in mind that we can also study its position in historical charts, both natal and mundane.

By the way, the Average Mean Distance from Earth argument doesn't hold true. Sun, Mercury and Venus all have the same average mean (what is the difference between the two terms, by the way?) distance from Earth.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about- ... termediate