waybread wrote:Michael, it's not hard to make a case for Pluto as modern co-ruler of Scorpio. As co-ruler of Aries, not so much.

The thing is, Pluto's rulership of Scorpio is taken for granted by almost all contemporary astrologers, even though opinions were divided first in the time after Pluto's discovery. To assess his potential co-rulership of Aries in an unbiased manner, we must think out of the box and consider how this planet's innate nature would express himself in Fire rather than in Water - that's quite a different animal!



Even though I don't take Cayce's identification of Pluto with Vulcan too literally, it may provide a useful hint at Pluto's fiery, eruptive and solar side - making him akin to Aries.

Unfortunately for other theories about why a given classical planet has a particular set of attributes, it is incontrovertible that the ancient astrological societies worshipped gods with particular attributes prior to their naming planets after the gods and ascribing the same attributes to the planets.

Ancient Greece is a clear example. Starting with Homer in the 7th-8th centuries CE, they had all kinds of lore about their gods. But astrology wasn't introduced into Greece until the 3rd century CE by the Babylonian astrologer and historian Berossus, according to contemporary sources.

So we can compare what the Greeks thought about their planetary gods before and after the introduction of astrology.

I don't deny that some accurate statements can be made along those lines, but our knowledge of the origin of the Greek gods is rather limited. Some may be of Lybian, Minoan and/or Egyptian provenance. We just don't know how exactly they came into existence!

What really matters, though, is that they mysteriously bear the very traits that characterize the planets, as evidenced in our astrological experience. They can't be the source of those traits, otherwise there would be no objective truth to astrology.

Another really old Greek source is Hesiod, Works and Days. He doesn't recount the Demeter-Persephone myth, but it is pretty clear that she is the major agricultural goddess. Most of this book is a kind of farmer's almanac.

Hesiod says to harvest the crops when the Pleiades rise-- which would have been in spring, and to plant when they set, which would have been in Autumn. My footnote says November. I don't know if the translator allowed for precession, but this would have been the seed going underground in the month of Scorpio. Further:

"When the piercing power and sultry heat of the sun abate, [415] and almighty Zeus sends the autumn rains,1 and men's flesh comes to feel far easier,—for then the star Sirius passes over the heads of men, who are born to misery, only a little while by day and takes greater share of night—"

We see here that the paramount significance of Jupiter was that he was the rain god. (Usually associated with thunder and lightning.) We also read that summer drought was a hardship-- it was not necessarily the pleasant time of year.

The crop planted in Autumn is to be harvested in mid-May (lines 570-580.) "But when [615] the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set,2 then remember to plough in season: and so the completed year3 will fitly pass beneath the earth." i.e, in early Autumn again.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Acard%3D1

It is interesting that Hesiod never mentions the zodiac, despite his apparent knowledge of the Mediterranean crop cycle and reckoning time by the stars.

He certainly points to a different agricultural cycle than people in temperate climates would be used to.

That's an interesting observation. It indeed raises the question where this myth and the deities it involves had their cultural origin. For instance, Demeter is now seen as a central goddess of the Minoans, along with other prominent members of the Greek pantheon.

http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/e023.htm

waybread wrote:

Michael Sternbach wrote:
Yes, I am adopting this view both for house cusps and planets in Aries. And it works well for me.

For instance, I noticed that Aries Suns with Pluto in Virgo frequently show a distinct "Virgo undertone" otherwise hard to explain.

Presumably Virgo has been Plutonized!

A generational planet like Pluto moving through Virgo would hardly leave the horoscope owner with any discernible Virgo traits, unless Pluto was of elevated importance - for example by being the ruler of the Sun.

Was Eris actually in Aries during the respective part of the pandemic?

Yes-- check it out. It squared that big stellium in Capricorn.

Interesting! ????

If a clairvoyant/psychic (Alice Bailey) channels a lot of racist, anti-Semitic material, I truly question what were her own personal beliefs and what could be attributed to The Tibetan. It is doubtful that a man, even an adept, living a monastic life in Tibet would have even known any Jews, for example.

I seriously doubt that Alice Bailey channeled "a lot of racist, anti-Semitic material", as I don't recollect that kind of foolish talk at all from my rather incomplete study of her writings. Occasional remarks that can be seen in that light may be there, even though I would need to investigate the matter much more thoroughly before making any kind of definite statement in this regard.

The trouble is, once we admit that a given clairvoyant made statements from that clairvoyant state that are patently untrue or bigoted, we have no way of determining with the other material, what is genuinely far-sighted, and what is simply the person's own personal beliefs.

Seth mentions somewhere in The Seth Material that a medium "even in a trance as deep as the Atlantic" would never become a pure channel. In one of his other books, he is quite elaborate on what we perceive of him being a blended personality based on both Jane's and his own consciousness.

The Tibetan (in the introduction of A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, I believe) cautions the reader not to prematurely accept any statements that don't ring true.

Moreover, time and again, I observed that the works of different "channelers" don't necessarily agree with each other on all accounts.

Do these facts render all "channeled material" useless? No, but they highlight the (fortunate or unfortunate - depending on your view) truth that each spiritual seeker must come to their very own conclusions, at the end of the day.

Michael Sternbach wrote:

waybread wrote:Michael, it's not hard to make a case for Pluto as modern co-ruler of Scorpio. As co-ruler of Aries, not so much.

The thing is, Pluto's rulership of Scorpio is taken for granted by almost all contemporary astrologers, even though opinions were divided first in the time after Pluto's discovery. To assess his potential co-rulership of Aries in an unbiased manner, we must think out of the box and consider how this planet's innate nature would express himself in Fire rather than in Water - that's quite a different animal!

We have some history and horoscopes to go by, surely. The Baby Boomers are the Pluto in Leo generation. Pluto was recently in Sagittarius. The Boomers have been noted, even by non-astrologers, for a sense of entitlement and self-centeredness. Pluto was in Aries last from 1822-1853. The Astro-DataBank www.astro.com should have a good selection of horoscopes for these people.

I don't deny that some accurate statements can be made along those lines, but our knowledge of the origin of the Greek gods is rather limited. Some may be of Lybian, Minoan and/or Egyptian provenance. We just don't know how exactly they came into existence!

We can look at cultures with written records, and see what they tell us. We don't have to speculate entirely. A lot of Greco-Roman mythology is known to have come from Babylon, notably re: their planetary gods.

What really matters, though, is that they mysteriously bear the very traits that characterize the planets, as evidenced in our astrological experience. They can't be the source of those traits, otherwise there would be no objective truth to astrology.

Sherlock Holmes famously said that if you are trying to solve a mystery, you eleminate all of the possibilities that do not fit the facts. What is left must be the truth. Put differently, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck..... it's a duck.

We cannot ignore information that bothers us out of fear that our glorious edifice of astrology will come crashing down. If we know horoscope interpretation has merit today, then the objectivity problem is not so important.

I see astrology as highly subjective. This doesn't bother me. I'd suggest that we inquire into how this subjectivity works.

If we're not looking at a causal relationship between planets and human behavior, perhaps we can look at the horoscope as a form of 4D graphic communication that stimulates astrologers' abilities to grasp information beyond linear time and space.

...

That's an interesting observation. It indeed raises the question where this myth and the deities it involves had their cultural origin. For instance, Demeter is now seen as a central goddess of the Minoans, along with other prominent members of the Greek pantheon.

http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/e023.htm

Ancient Mediterranean and Near East societies were in contact with one another through trade, military invasion, and population migration. Archaeological finds attest to trade networks.

Crete and Mycenae are seen as ancestral to ancient Greece. Their deities traveled with them (Sometimes literally, for the idol-worshippers.) We know from the Bible that the prophets often scolded the Israelites for worshipping their neighbors' gods. The Philistines were probably the ancient Mycenaeans.

Some of the mythology is probably Indo-European.

When gods "migrate" they may take on attributes of the new host society through the process of syncretism. The gods may diversify in new locales or lose older attributes. It seems to have been a fluid process.

Michael, I found this quote from Alice Bailey in a secondary source. Apparently it comes from her Esoteric Healing, p. 263.

"Today the law [karma] is working and the Jews are paying the
price, factually and symbolically, for all they have done in
the past. ... They have never faced candidly and honestly (as
a race) the problem of why the many nations, from the time of
the Egyptians, have neither liked nor wanted them. ... The
Jewish problem will be solved by the willingness of the Jew
to conform to the civilization, the cultural background and
the standards of living of the nation to which he is related
and with which he should assimilate. ... It [the solution to
the Jewish problem] will come when selfishness in business
relations and the pronounced manipulative tendencies of the
Hebrew people are exchanged for more selfless and honest
forms of activity."

https://www.nonduality.com/alice.htm

The discussants complain that the Lucis Trust, a repository of Bailey's work, have scrubbed" such statements out of their editions.

Michael, just one other thing I might mention, is that the horoscope obviously has a daily, as well as a seasonal function. The signs do not take exactly two hours to run through a day, but they visually divide the 24-hour day into 12 segments of time called houses, measured in hours and minutes.

I am a big fan of Deborah Houlding's book, Houses: Temples of the Sky. I accept her argument that we cannot simply conflate signs and houses. Nevertheless, as Dorian Greenbaum and Micah Ross have shown, there is a strong argument to be made for an Egyptian origin for astrological houses.

If we focus on the cradle of horoscopic astrology in Alexandria, Egypt in the early centuries BCE, there is some evidence that they did conflate signs and houses, notably with the whole signs house system.

What happens if we look at the 8th house and Scorpio as the traditional house of death from a diurnal perspective?

The time corresponds with mid-late afternoon, which is the heat of the day in July-August. The hot part of the day doesn't come at noon, but sometime after that. This is the time when people and animals take cover.

https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/egypt/ ... her-august

This would be the one argument I can think of for a "death planet" ruling a fire sign. Just probably not Aries, more like Leo. Unsurprisingly, hot dry Mars was anciently given to Scorpio.

The other death part is that actual scorpions in Egypt can be deadly. Again, the scorpion's stinger is a good match for weapon-ruling Mars, but it would fit with a death-dealing planet of some other description.

I don't know how this would have worked out a few thousand years ago, what with precession, but the constellation Scorpio appears in the summer sky, these days.

waybread wrote:

Michael Sternbach wrote:

waybread wrote:Michael, it's not hard to make a case for Pluto as modern co-ruler of Scorpio. As co-ruler of Aries, not so much.

The thing is, Pluto's rulership of Scorpio is taken for granted by almost all contemporary astrologers, even though opinions were divided first in the time after Pluto's discovery. To assess his potential co-rulership of Aries in an unbiased manner, we must think out of the box and consider how this planet's innate nature would express himself in Fire rather than in Water - that's quite a different animal!

We have some history and horoscopes to go by, surely. The Baby Boomers are the Pluto in Leo generation. Pluto was recently in Sagittarius. The Boomers have been noted, even by non-astrologers, for a sense of entitlement and self-centeredness. Pluto was in Aries last from 1822-1853. The Astro-DataBank www.astro.com should have a good selection of horoscopes for these people.

Just for Pluto in Aries, Astro-DataBank offers roughly 2000 horoscopes that fit the bill. ???? We would need to narrow down the choice for our purposes here. Let me think about how to go about this practically... ????

Talking about Leo, this is actually Pluto's exaltation in my book. The Baby Boomers' much noted "sense of entitlement and self-centerness" could very well speak to that.

My idea is to better understand Pluto's nature on its own terms as well as to reflect on how that nature expresses itself in the different elements and qualities.

One of the key terms would certainly be 'death and rebirth'.

I don't deny that some accurate statements can be made along those lines, but our knowledge of the origin of the Greek gods is rather limited. Some may be of Lybian, Minoan and/or Egyptian provenance. We just don't know how exactly they came into existence!

We can look at cultures with written records, and see what they tell us. We don't have to speculate entirely. A lot of Greco-Roman mythology is known to have come from Babylon, notably re: their planetary gods.

That would be notable indeed! According to that, it would have been Babylonian planetary gods that partially inspired the Greeks for their own deities, which they placed onto the planets in turn...

The only problem with it is that Babylonian gods are quite different from their Greek equivalents, though; for instance, Babylonian Ishtar is also a war goddess, which Greco-Roman Aphrodite/Venus is obviously not.

What really matters, though, is that they mysteriously bear the very traits that characterize the planets, as evidenced in our astrological experience. They can't be the source of those traits, otherwise there would be no objective truth to astrology.

Sherlock Holmes famously said that if you are trying to solve a mystery, you eleminate all of the possibilities that do not fit the facts. What is left must be the truth. Put differently, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck..... it's a duck.

In all likelihood.

We cannot ignore information that bothers us out of fear that our glorious edifice of astrology will come crashing down. If we know horoscope interpretation has merit today, then the objectivity problem is not so important.

I see astrology as highly subjective. This doesn't bother me. I'd suggest that we inquire into how this subjectivity works.

If we're not looking at a causal relationship between planets and human behavior, perhaps we can look at the horoscope as a form of 4D graphic communication that stimulates astrologers' abilities to grasp information beyond linear time and space.

I agree that the astrological observer may factor more heavily, than some 'objectivist astrologers' wish to give them credit for. It could even be that astrology, despite its 'exact' mathematical and astronomical framework, isn't fundamentally different from other methods of divination (Tarot, I-ching etc.) in that respect. (This may be most obvious in the case of Horary.)

However, what is really going on here appears to be multi-layered - and poorly understood.

That's an interesting observation. It indeed raises the question where this myth and the deities it involves had their cultural origin. For instance, Demeter is now seen as a central goddess of the Minoans, along with other prominent members of the Greek pantheon.

http://www.anistor.gr/english/enback/e023.htm

Ancient Mediterranean and Near East societies were in contact with one another through trade, military invasion, and population migration. Archaeological finds attest to trade networks.

Crete and Mycenae are seen as ancestral to ancient Greece. Their deities traveled with them (Sometimes literally, for the idol-worshippers.) We know from the Bible that the prophets often scolded the Israelites for worshipping their neighbors' gods. The Philistines were probably the ancient Mycenaeans.

Some of the mythology is probably Indo-European.

When gods "migrate" they may take on attributes of the new host society through the process of syncretism. The gods may diversify in new locales or lose older attributes. It seems to have been a fluid process.

waybread wrote:Michael, just one other thing I might mention, is that the horoscope obviously has a daily, as well as a seasonal function. The signs do not take exactly two hours to run through a day, but they visually divide the 24-hour day into 12 segments of time called houses, measured in hours and minutes.

I am a big fan of Deborah Houlding's book, Houses: Temples of the Sky. I accept her argument that we cannot simply conflate signs and houses. Nevertheless, as Dorian Greenbaum and Micah Ross have shown, there is a strong argument to be made for an Egyptian origin for astrological houses.

If we focus on the cradle of horoscopic astrology in Alexandria, Egypt in the early centuries BCE, there is some evidence that they did conflate signs and houses, notably with the whole signs house system.

What happens if we look at the 8th house and Scorpio as the traditional house of death from a diurnal perspective?

The time corresponds with mid-late afternoon, which is the heat of the day in July-August. The hot part of the day doesn't come at noon, but sometime after that. This is the time when people and animals take cover.

https://www.weather-atlas.com/en/egypt/ ... her-august

This would be the one argument I can think of for a "death planet" ruling a fire sign. Just probably not Aries, more like Leo. Unsurprisingly, hot dry Mars was anciently given to Scorpio.

The other death part is that actual scorpions in Egypt can be deadly. Again, the scorpion's stinger is a good match for weapon-ruling Mars, but it would fit with a death-dealing planet of some other description.

I don't know how this would have worked out a few thousand years ago, what with precession, but the constellation Scorpio appears in the summer sky, these days.

Indeed, depending on location, the scathing heat of the Sun when he reaches the 8th house suggests a fiery planet as its "mundane ruler".

And the scorpion with its deadly stinger is surely a Martian creature par excellence - not least, because most kinds live quite comfortably in the relentless heat and dryness of the desert (and Mars is a desert planet, as we know today).

These are good hints. Thanks for playing the game! ????

Making a case for Mars being Scorpio's primary ruler, I would add that not only is he nocturnal, but he uniquely rules the Water trigon both at day and night! Surely not all astrologers followed Ptolemy in this, but one very prominent one who did so was William Lilly.

I believe this conforms with the common understanding of triplicity in horary astrology?

Hi Michael-- I will get back to your more recent posts, but you had asked about further references to Pluto, Demeter, and Persephone.

There is a fair bit in the Orphic hymns. Orphism was a secret mystery cult, so apparently it was hard to even date them. The English in this 1792 version is kind of archaic but the translator was trying to rhyme it-- not too happily, unfortunately. Hopefully you can find a more recent German translation

https://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymns1.html

There are references to the rape of Persephone in the Pluto and Persephone hymns. This one does suggest she goes underground in Autumn, but she doesn't seem to emerge as a goddess, but in the form of spring vegetation.

Hymn 39 is to Ceres/Demeter. It's interesting that whereas Persephone is the spring, Ceres represents the harvest and threshing of grain.

Orpheus himself was one of the few mythological characters to descend to Hades and return, although losing his wife Eurydice in the process.

waybread wrote:Hi Michael-- I will get back to your more recent posts, but you had asked about further references to Pluto, Demeter, and Persephone.

There is a fair bit in the Orphic hymns. Orphism was a secret mystery cult, so apparently it was hard to even date them. The English in this 1792 version is kind of archaic but the translator was trying to rhyme it-- not too happily, unfortunately. Hopefully you can find a more recent German translation

https://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymns1.html

There are references to the rape of Persephone in the Pluto and Persephone hymns. This one does suggest she goes underground in Autumn, but she doesn't seem to emerge as a goddess, but in the form of spring vegetation.

Hi Waybread

That's truly awesome material. Much appreciated. ????




By the way, rumor has it that Persephone/Proserpina was not all that averse to Pluto, at the end of the day.

Hymn 39 is to Ceres/Demeter. It's interesting that whereas Persephone is the spring, Ceres represents the harvest and threshing of grain.

Talking about Ceres, it's noteworthy that planetary scientists now find her dwarf planet to be closely related with Pluto.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sc ... lost-twins

Major differences in their evolution being attributed to the fact, that one dwells in a relatively warm and light-drenched zone of the solar system, the other in its downright cold and dark region.

Orpheus himself was one of the few mythological characters to descend to Hades and return, although losing his wife Eurydice in the process.

Waybread,

Perhaps you find this interesting? The author of this article assumes that, just like Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are sometimes considered higher octaves of Mercury, Venus and Mars, the dwarf planets Makemake, Haumea and Eris might be higher octaves of the three known trans-Saturnians.

As a higher octave of Mars/Pluto, Eris could indeed have a close affinity with Aries without necessarily replacing this sign's more common ruler(s).

https://www.astro.com/astrology/tma_article211214_e.htm

Michael Sternbach wrote:...
Talking about Leo, this is actually Pluto's exaltation in my book. The Baby Boomers' much noted "sense of entitlement and self-centerness" could very well speak to that.

My idea is to better understand Pluto's nature on its own terms as well as to reflect on how that nature expresses itself in the different elements and qualities.

One of the key terms would certainly be 'death and rebirth'.

I'm not convinced that it makes sense to talk about modern outers having an exaltation (and by extension, a fall.) Surely we can discuss how a given sign affects a planet's manner of expression, though.

I am apparently missing something, because I have never gotten the idea of a modern planet being a "higher octave" of a traditional planet. How would one even use that in chart interpretation? The modern outers have historically accompanied a lot of misfortunes, so I don't see them as necessarily at a higher level of consciousness. (Cf. Neptune and drug addiction.)

I think it is very worthwhile to rethink Pluto-- but what would re-assigning its domicile to Aries actually accomplish? I imagine that astrologers did work with that after 1930, because Aries is logically the next sign after Neptune in Pisces. It would be interesting to do some historical research on the mid-20th century to see what was the thinking, and who proposed Scorpio.

That would be notable indeed! According to that, it would have been Babylonian planetary gods that partially inspired the Greeks for their own deities, which they placed onto the planets in turn...

The only problem with it is that Babylonian gods are quite different from their Greek equivalents, though; for instance, Babylonian Ishtar is also a war goddess, which Greco-Roman Aphrodite/Venus is obviously not.

I don't think the Mesopotamian gods transferred identically to Greece, but a planet simplifies what was written or worshipped about a relevant god. For example, suppose we discuss the planet Mars in a horoscope: maybe the native wants to know if joining the military is a good career move. Mars rules soldiers and warfare, as does Ares [modern Greeks still use their own names for planets.] The Babylonian planet Mars was ruled by their god Nergal, who also ruled warfare.

In the absence of the planet Pluto, Nergal also had underworld and death connotations. Which fits well with The Scorpion's traditional Mars domicile.

I agree that the astrological observer may factor more heavily, than some 'objectivist astrologers' wish to give them credit for. It could even be that astrology, despite its 'exact' mathematical and astronomical framework, isn't fundamentally different from other methods of divination (Tarot, I-ching etc.) in that respect. (This may be most obvious in the case of Horary.)

However, what is really going on here appears to be multi-layered - and poorly understood.

Agreed. I have my own theory on this: that astrology "works" (assuming it does) as a form of graphic communication. I started a thread on this question once http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 33&start=0 . I don't think I convinced anyone, though.

Michael Sternbach wrote:
Indeed, depending on location, the scathing heat of the Sun when he reaches the 8th house suggests a fiery planet as its "mundane ruler".

And the scorpion with its deadly stinger is surely a Martian creature par excellence - not least, because most kinds live quite comfortably in the relentless heat and dryness of the desert (and Mars is a desert planet, as we know today).

These are good hints. Thanks for playing the game! ????

Making a case for Mars being Scorpio's primary ruler, I would add that not only is he nocturnal, but he uniquely rules the Water trigon both at day and night! Surely not all astrologers followed Ptolemy in this, but one very prominent one who did so was William Lilly.

I believe this conforms with the common understanding of triplicity in horary astrology?

I think Ptolemy's genius (if I can call it that) was in trying to fit a jumble of different astrological and mythological traditions into a rational Aristotelian framework. Usually I think he did this pretty well, but occasionally there is some slippage.

Scorpio works well as a water sign if we think of November as the serious onset of the rainy season in a Mediterranean climate.

It doesn't work so well from a diurnal perspective, though, when we recognize mid-afternoon as the warmest part of the day, which can be deadly in summer in a desert climate like Egypt or Iraq.. And yes-- interesting associations between the desert, Mars, deadly scorpions