Hi Michael-- Pluto, Ceres/Demeter, and Proserpina/Persephone are an interesting trio.

In many Greek myths, there is little or no mention of Proserpina/Persephone as migrating between the upper and lower worlds. She is simply Queen of the Dead, and Pluto's consort.

Some of the ancient Greek artwork depicts the two goddesses as nearly identical adult women, suggesting that they are simply different sides of the same goddess.

BTW, there is another story involving Persephone and the descent into hell. Apparently Persephone and Venus/Aphrodite were both enamored of the same good-looking young man, Adonis. The conclusion was that Adonis divided his time between the two goddesses. https://www.theoi.com/articles/who-is-a ... mythology/

Adonis seems to have gotten his start in life as a Near Eastern agricultural god.

waybread wrote:

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.

It depends on how you like to model your astrology. To me, modern astrology is a straightforward extension of traditional astrology. It is subject to the same principles. Thus, it is only logical to assume that the outers have their domiciles and exaltations too.

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?

It is more of an approach to understanding the basic nature of the trans-Saturnian planets. The underlying idea being that the order of the outer planets reflects and repeats the inner series, with the more personality-centered forces of the latter turned universal.

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.)

Not necessarily. In fact, they can be at a lower level in the sense that they represent instinctive, subconscious and collective psychological forces that the ego has little control over.

However, moving beyond the boundaries of the conscious personality, the extremes do touch. There's a thin line between genius and madness. The mystic and the drug addict are dwelling in the same waters, only the former is swimming, the latter is drowning. And so forth.

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.

In my view, the domicile scheme is astrology's rational underpinning. It used to have a logically deducible structure before. Along those lines, it would be only logical to assign Pluto to Aries (as you say).

Without a stringent theoretical foundation, astrology cannot hope to regain its status as a science.

Also, if Pluto's relationship to Aries has hitherto been neglected, reestablishing it would obviously have implications for the understanding of this planet and for the practice of astrology overall.

It would be interesting to do some historical research on the mid-20th century to see what was the thinking, and who proposed Scorpio.

The article I linked in my OP, written by fellow Skyscript member Philip M. Graves, is a fascinating discussion of Pluto's zodiacal assignment mostly before his actual discovery in 1930. For (nothwithstanding the popular story that Pluto got his name from an eleven-year old girl, with reference to Mickey Mouse's dog) he had been predicted and correctly named by a surprising number of astrologers years ahead of his first observation.

While Pluto's assignments to Scorpio and Aries, respectively, were quite evenly distributed initially, the scales rather quickly tipped in favour of the former after his discovery. I remember having heard that his official nomination as the Lord of Scorpio was the result of a poll in the astrological community, but I would have to verify that.

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.

Yes, I noticed that too when I took a closer look at the Babylonian planetary gods!

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.

I will take a look at it sometime.

waybread wrote:

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.

Yes, Ptolemy was instrumental setting astrology into the framework of Aristotelian cosmology. Like other prominent astrologers of the time, he was drawing from the today scarcely extant compendium ascribed to Nechepso and Petosiris and, beyond that, from older Hermetic texts. From my perspective, he did not always know the true rationale of the doctrines he was passing on, though, and substituted explanations of his own making as best he could.

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 that's where Scorpio's (and, by extension, the 8th house's) association with the red planet's hot and dry nature plays out.

And yes-- interesting associations between the desert, Mars, deadly scorpions

waybread wrote:Hi Michael-- Pluto, Ceres/Demeter, and Proserpina/Persephone are an interesting trio.

In many Greek myths, there is little or no mention of Proserpina/Persephone as migrating between the upper and lower worlds. She is simply Queen of the Dead, and Pluto's consort.

Some of the ancient Greek artwork depicts the two goddesses as nearly identical adult women, suggesting that they are simply different sides of the same goddess.

Interestingly, we find the two goddesses as nearly identical with each other already in Cretan mythology as examined in Virginia Hicks' article "Minoan Origins of Athena" that I linked above

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

where both deities are seen as aspects of an early (Minoan) version of Athena.

I will only give a few particularly pertinent quotes from that comprehensive report here, however, the whole article is well worth our attention.

This connection between female reproductivity and the sun is recognized most clearly in the person of the Minoan Athena herself, who may well be represented by all of these frying pans, in her duties as Kore, mistress of the Underworld, attested as A-ta-no-dju-de-ka on Za Z3, dekan being cognate with Hittite tekan (earth).

Another name of the main Minoan goddess is A-sa-sa-ra-me (or Ja-sa-sa-ra-me), my Lady (-me is an enclitic pronoun). The connection between Jasasarame and the Hittite term ishasarasmis was pointed out by Leonard R. Palmer (Palmer 1965; pp. 334-5). In an inscription found at Palaikastro [PK Za11] the goddess is addressed in both ways, as Atanodjuwae (vocative) and Asasarame - as Athena and as the Lady, for which Potnia is the Mycenaean translation.

Moreover, there is evidence that our story of Hades and Persephone is actually based on Minoan mythology:

In several Minoan religious inscriptions, Athena appears to be bemoaning her separation from another goddess, Ida. This story lives on in the myths about Demeter and Persephone (also known as Kore). The gods assemble, just as they do in Homer; but there are Minoan elements here which may have been believed by the Mycenaeans but were lost to posterity. Ida herself - Ida Mate(r) - was taken into Greek as Damater, later Demeter. (Since Greek tends to place the accent near or at the end of words, and the Greeks who borrowed Ida Mate(r) may have been no more aware of her origins than were those who borrowed Atano-djuwaja and lost the sun goddess connection, it makes sense for the name of the goddess to undergo further linguistic changes as a unit, not as the sum of its parts.)

Another myth (Grant and Hazel, 1993, p. 281) involves Poseidon, who "also took Demeter in the form of a horse, since she, to avoid him, had become a mare (perhaps she was his original consort, as the relationship between their names suggests), and she bore him the divine horse Arion and a daughter Despoina." Poseidon is a compound name, the first part (from posis) meaning husband, the second part apparently referring to the goddess Ida, who became Demeter. This myth is a remnant of the original mythology behind Demeter and Poseidon, even going so far as to list Athena by a Greek translation of her original title, Jasasara, the Lady.

Incidentally, John Chadwick mentions that in later times, there was a district outside of Thebes that was known as Potniai, "Ladies." In the classical period, this was understood to refer to Demeter and Persephone. Perhaps it is an echo of the confusion Chadwick found in the Linear B tablets, where he shows on the one hand that Potnia usually refers to the "Earth Mother," later known as Demeter - and yet often refers to Athena as well (Chadwick, 1976; p. 93).

Note that the asteroids Ceres (Demeter) and Pallas(-Athena) were the first and the second to be discovered. They are also first and second in regards to volume.

BTW, there is another story involving Persephone and the descent into hell. Apparently Persephone and Venus/Aphrodite were both enamored of the same good-looking young man, Adonis. The conclusion was that Adonis divided his time between the two goddesses. https://www.theoi.com/articles/who-is-a ... mythology/

Oh man, you gotta love those ancient Greeks for their pragmatic attitude!

Kidding aside, it seems to be poor Persephone's recurring theme that she wouldn't be allowed to have more than a part time relationship with the captain of her heart.

Adonis seems to have gotten his start in life as a Near Eastern agricultural god.

More precisely, as the ancient Mesopotamian fertility and vegetation god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) who plays a part in the famous myth Inanna's Descent into the Underworld.

Quoting Wikipedia: "Dumuzid was associated with fertility and vegetation and the hot, dry summers of Mesopotamia were believed to be caused by Dumuzid's yearly death."

Talk about recurring themes...

While viewing Pluto as the Lord of Aries is definitely a maverick position in modern astrology, there are a few practitioners sharing my belief that he just might be. The question was even raised on Quora, and the reply given by astrologer Jane Murphy is IMO so astute that I want to quote it in full

Answer to Astrology question, Does Pluto rule Aries?
by Jane Murphy, Western Astrologer

Answered Aug 20, 2020

Yes, in my opinion Pluto rules Aries. Not everyone agrees with me, but there are good reasons for that assignment.

One is that Pluto’s energies ‘transform’ by revealing what has been hidden (by Neptune); it implies a sequence analogous to the transitions from Neptune-ruled Pisces to Aries and the 12th house to the 1st.

Another is that ‘skin-shedding’ Pluto is a highly focused power that seeks free and direct expression of its own truth; it wants to get out. Like Aries, Pluto is a solo act, unconcerned with others.

In contrast, Mars, (considered Aries’ ruler by some) is very much concerned with others. Mars wants to get in, to engage with another/others and compete and struggle for what they have and he wants. That energy is analogous to Scorpio and the 8th house, which follow in logical sequence the Libra/7th house objective appreciation of value in ‘the other’.

https://www.quora.com/Astrology-questio ... ype=answer

Michael Sternbach wrote:
It depends on how you like to model your astrology. To me, modern astrology is a straightforward extension of traditional astrology. It is subject to the same principles. Thus, it is only logical to assume that the outers have their domiciles and exaltations too.

Traditional astrology's essential dignities went considerably beyond domiciles, exaltations, detriments and falls. The modern outers don't fit well into terms, faces, or triplicities

Then what would you actually do with the Big Four essential dignities, once you've identified them? How would you read a nativity differently, for example?

It is more of an approach to understanding the basic nature of the trans-Saturnian planets. The underlying idea being that the order of the outer planets reflects and repeats the inner series, with the more personality-centered forces of the latter turned universal.

OK, but again, how would you read a nativity differently, having determined that Planet A is a "higher octave" of planet B? Most people who want their charts read ask about very basic, normal problems, like "Why am I 40 and still single?"

I wrote:

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.)

Not necessarily. In fact, they can be at a lower level in the sense that they represent instinctive, subconscious and collective psychological forces that the ego has little control over.

However, moving beyond the boundaries of the conscious personality, the extremes do touch. There's a thin line between genius and madness. The mystic and the drug addict are dwelling in the same waters, only the former is swimming, the latter is drowning. And so forth.

OK, but how helpful is this in responding to horoscope questions? Typical ones are: "When is my money going to work out?" "Please explain the synastry between me and my boyfriend." "Why is my sister such a horrible person?"

In my view, the domicile scheme is astrology's rational underpinning. It used to have a logically deducible structure before. Along those lines, it would be only logical to assign Pluto to Aries (as you say).

Without a stringent theoretical foundation, astrology cannot hope to regain its status as a science.

Astrology is never going to regain its status as a science. Science today is far beyond any level of rigor we can hope to achieve. Maybe astrology could be respected as one of the humanities, similar to history or literature.

Also, if Pluto's relationship to Aries has hitherto been neglected, reestablishing it would obviously have implications for the understanding of this planet and for the practice of astrology overall.

Well, good luck with that. There is still the problem of Pluto working find as the modern ruler of Scorpio.

The article I linked in my OP, written by fellow Skyscript member Philip M. Graves, is a fascinating discussion of Pluto's zodiacal assignment mostly before his actual discovery in 1930. For (nothwithstanding the popular story that Pluto got his name from an eleven-year old girl, with reference to Mickey Mouse's dog) he had been predicted and correctly named by a surprising number of astrologers years ahead of his first observation.

While Pluto's assignments to Scorpio and Aries, respectively, were quite evenly distributed initially, the scales rather quickly tipped in favour of the former after his discovery. I remember having heard that his official nomination as the Lord of Scorpio was the result of a poll in the astrological community, but I would have to verify that.

Thanks, I'll go back and look for it.

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.

They don't transfer identically, but a lot of it does transfer. For that matter, Greek astrologers and astronomers still use their names for the planets, and the Greek and Roman ones do not always translate identically, either. Which is something else I find interesting about Eris: the war goddess.

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.

What is an "objectivist astrologer"? Astrology clearly is a form of divination.

Michael, on why astrology is not a science or pseudo science-- and unlikely to become a science.
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8963

A lot of the modern astrology you've mentioned is what I call the poetics of astrology. Or maybe the imagery of astrology. It tells a nice story. The language evokes mental pictures and allusions. A lot of it is based on theosophy. reaching astrology by way of Dane Rudhyar.

But darned if I know how one would read a chart that way. For example, when the querent asks, why doesn't that man who seems so fascinated by her in their Internet exchanges actually want to meet her in person. Why is the horoscope native ("owner" in German") still unemployed and when is he going to get a new job?

Let alone, how any of this higher-octave, new-domicile material would work in horary astrology.

With mythology-- and I mean the ancient authors in translation, or actual scholarship-- at least I can get at key words and meanings that explain something about a planet's qualities. Planet Venus rules romantic and sexual relationships, for example, because we can point to all kinds of myths where this was the goddess Venus's nature.

On the warrior vs. lover nature of Venus anciently, it took star-gazers a long time to recognize that the same planet appeared as the morning and evening star.

In Hindu (jyotish) astrology the planet Venus is represented by a male god, Shukra.

The god Pluto was preceded by the Sumerian Erishkegal and Greek Hekate, both female. In Malta archaeological evidence points to the goddess who was both "womb and tomb."

So it might be worthwhile expanding our understandings of the planetary gods.

Just recently, I happened to refind an interesting book written by Dane Rudhyar, called The Sun Is Also a Star. Even though it has been in my possession for years, I never looked at it much so far. To my delight, in it I found a passage that touches on several of the topics that have been raised here. Citing p. 66 f., with some comments of my own added in between:

The fact that the Crucifixion and its aftermath, the three days "descent to hell" are celebrated at the verbal equinox is deeply significant; for that moment of the year's cycle refers, at least symbolically, to the process of germination; and germination is the crucifixion of the seed. Out of the torn seed, the first thing to emerge is the rootlet, and this rootlet "descends" into the humus, produce of the decay of leaves and all that once had been living. The dark soil is the hell of the life-sphere, but it is also the foundation of all living processes - the "dark mother" which is the past, who will be redeemed as her decayed materials are drawn upward toward air and light within the new life and eventually reach the flower state.

Here Rudhyar reminds us that, since the growth of a plant starts with germination, it is in fact a process that is not only directed upwards towards the Sun and the light, but also downwards, deeper into the dark "underworld" of the soil. Lo and behold, Pluto says hello again.

Germination is a Plutonian process, and this is why in astrology Pluto should "rule" Aries, the vernal equinox sign of the zodiac, symbol of the creative impulse which initiates all new life-processes.

In the next few sentences, Rudhyar relativizes the applicability of the traditional rulership concept to the trans-Saturnians (a nod to Waybread ), and then goes on:

All that can be said is that in the new galactic approach to the planets and to the zodiac - the tropical zodiac which is the background on which we plot the cyclically changing relationship of the Sun to the Earth - the signs following Capricorn (the apex of Saturn's power) correspond to the basic phases in the process of transformation symbolized by Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Thus Uranus is associated with Aquarius, Neptune with Pisces, Pluto with Aries, and an assumed Proserpine with Taurus.

Significantly, Rudhyar sees the series of the planets and of the signs that (in his view) correspond with them, respectively, as representative of the subsequent stages of an unfolding process leading from the "saturnine" personality to the expanded consciousness of "enlightenement." He specifically mentions Proserpina (:D) as a hypothetical planet that corresponds with Taurus - not that far removed conceptually from Sevin's Transpluto aka vegetation god Bacchus which I am exploring.

Pluto however is the challenger of all that Mars represents in the Sun-to-Saturn system. Pluto's impersonality challenges Mars' essentially personal-emotional character. The challenges occur in Scorpio as well as in Aries, just as Neptune's challenge to Jupiter occurs in Pisces (symbol of the last moment of a cultural cycle) as well as in Sagittarius (which represents the achievement by a culture of its fundamental philosophical and legal character); and Uranus challenges Saturn in Capricorn as well as in Aquarius, for the moment the day begins to lengthen, the power of Saturn is doomed, even at the very apex of its power.

I was particularly intrigued by this statement as it reflects my own line of thought that, perhaps, we should assign "double rulerships" to the outers, just like the classical planets have always inhabited two domiciles each.

In regards to the pairing of Uranus with Capricorn, I once made a first attempt here:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... &start=240
(see post on the bottom of the page)

That's great, Michael.

But how would you read a horoscope for someone using that stuff?

I read charts for people on Astrodienst and Astrologers Community. Very rarely have I found any querents who are interested in esoteric or evolutionary astrology solutions to their relationship or financial problems.

Let's get real?

If what one is after is a life philosophy or spiritual pathway, I think we can do so much better than the esoteric astrologers. The great philosophers on ordinary lives like Epicurus, or the great world religions, are so much deeper and more thoughtful than the kind of "cotton candy for the soul" that passes for theosophy or evolutionary astrology.

Astrology is my passion but, to be brutally honest, it has not attracted the best minds. (Present company excepted.)

Hi Waybread

Please bear with me, I will be back here replying to you shortly.

waybread wrote:

Michael Sternbach wrote:
It depends on how you like to model your astrology. To me, modern astrology is a straightforward extension of traditional astrology. It is subject to the same principles. Thus, it is only logical to assume that the outers have their domiciles and exaltations too.

Traditional astrology's essential dignities went considerably beyond domiciles, exaltations, detriments and falls. The modern outers don't fit well into terms, faces, or triplicities

This is true as far as it goes. Terms, faces, and triplicities are mostly based on the classical system with its seven planets. As you surely know, each of these methods comes in different variations, though, and it is conceivable that new ones could be devised that would meaningfully include the outers.

By contrast, the classical exaltation scheme *calls for* extension, IMO, because as we know it, it looks kind of unfinished.



The same holds true for the domicile scheme if we consider the version Firmicus Maternus passed down to us in form of his famous Thema Mundi.



Note that the outers fit right into it, if we assign them to Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries (and to Taurus and Gemini by way of extension to include the hypothetical trans-Plutonian planets).

Surely many questions remain yet to be answered from a traditional perspective, for instance, what sect, gender, Aristotelian qualities should be attributed to the outers. For now, I consider Uranus to be diurnal, male and dry/hot (thus kind of fiery), while I look at Neptune as diurnal, female and wet/cold (therefor watery) - but with Pluto, things get kinda shady. He is most likely nocturnal, but his elemental makeup is a question yet unanswered to me, and the same goes for his gender - maybe he is actually hermaphroditic?

Then what would you actually do with the Big Four essential dignities, once you've identified them? How would you read a nativity differently, for example?

I do have a working working hypothesis (:lol:) for aforementioned two essential dignities at least. I don't read a nativity differently (uhm, different from what?), including them. I simply consider further exaltations/falls and domiciles/detriments for adding Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, plus hypothetical/experimental Bacchus to the picture.

It is more of an approach to understanding the basic nature of the trans-Saturnian planets. The underlying idea being that the order of the outer planets reflects and repeats the inner series, with the more personality-centered forces of the latter turned universal.

OK, but again, how would you read a nativity differently, having determined that Planet A is a "higher octave" of planet B? Most people who want their charts read ask about very basic, normal problems, like "Why am I 40 and still single?"

I wrote:

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.)

Not necessarily. In fact, they can be at a lower level in the sense that they represent instinctive, subconscious and collective psychological forces that the ego has little control over.

However, moving beyond the boundaries of the conscious personality, the extremes do touch. There's a thin line between genius and madness. The mystic and the drug addict are dwelling in the same waters, only the former is swimming, the latter is drowning. And so forth.

OK, but how helpful is this in responding to horoscope questions? Typical ones are: "When is my money going to work out?" "Please explain the synastry between me and my boyfriend." "Why is my sister such a horrible person?"

In my experience, those clients with prominent trans-Saturnians in their charts are exactly those who understand what the hell I am talking about when I bring up concepts like the intuitive mind, inner knowledge, mystical union, universal love (agape), various borderline experiences etc.

Some such individuals I have met via forums frequented by 'spiritual seekers', and many more of those "close encounters of the third kind" date back to the days when I was counselling the patients of a psychotherapeutic practice (in context with a centre for alternative therapies I co-founded together with a psychiatrist in the 90's).

For instance, when dealing with a strongly Neptunian individual - overly empathic with people around him and trying to cover up his otherwise uncontrollable sensitivity by indulging in alcohol - the concept of Neptune as a higher octave of Venus may come in handy to gain (and share) a new perspective on what is going on.

Comes to mind the case of a young man sent to me by an associated doctor. He was HIV-positive and had an impressive history of drug abuse. For some reason, his chart reminded me of the myth of Pluto and Proserpina, so I mentioned it. To my delight, he connected to my words right away, started asking questions about it and found the story personally meaningful to him.

But with some others, I had to translate my insights into terms they could more easily grasp, to be sure. We need to pick up people where they are!

In my view, the domicile scheme is astrology's rational underpinning. It used to have a logically deducible structure before. Along those lines, it would be only logical to assign Pluto to Aries (as you say).

Without a stringent theoretical foundation, astrology cannot hope to regain its status as a science.

Astrology is never going to regain its status as a science. Science today is far beyond any level of rigor we can hope to achieve. Maybe astrology could be respected as one of the humanities, similar to history or literature.

Mostly as a form of psychology, perhaps. Also, there might be new types of science developing that do not conform with the one-sidedly positivist paradigm characterizing much of science today. Anthroposophy is a step in the right direction.

Also, if Pluto's relationship to Aries has hitherto been neglected, reestablishing it would obviously have implications for the understanding of this planet and for the practice of astrology overall.

Well, good luck with that. There is still the problem of Pluto working find as the modern ruler of Scorpio.

The article I linked in my OP, written by fellow Skyscript member Philip M. Graves, is a fascinating discussion of Pluto's zodiacal assignment mostly before his actual discovery in 1930. For (nothwithstanding the popular story that Pluto got his name from an eleven-year old girl, with reference to Mickey Mouse's dog) he had been predicted and correctly named by a surprising number of astrologers years ahead of his first observation.

While Pluto's assignments to Scorpio and Aries, respectively, were quite evenly distributed initially, the scales rather quickly tipped in favour of the former after his discovery. I remember having heard that his official nomination as the Lord of Scorpio was the result of a poll in the astrological community, but I would have to verify that.

Thanks, I'll go back and look for it.

Did you?

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.

They don't transfer identically, but a lot of it does transfer. For that matter, Greek astrologers and astronomers still use their names for the planets, and the Greek and Roman ones do not always translate identically, either.

Not exactly, that's right. For that matter, Uranus (Ouranos) was taken out of the Greek pantheon - his Roman name commonly being Caelus. (Then again, anomalies like this should count as normal when dealing with this funky planet.)

Which is something else I find interesting about Eris: the war goddess.

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.

What is an "objectivist astrologer"? Astrology clearly is a form of divination.

Well, I don't know, but some fellows seem to believe that astrology could qualify as an exact science in the modern sense. The way I see it, it could be formulated in terms of a contemporary natural philosophy. At the same time, it does have the features of a divinatory system, and the subjectivism that comes with that might explain why different practitioners can use various zodiacs, house systems, hypothetical planets etc. and still reach equally valid conclusions.

Hi, Michael-- There is a lot in your latest post, so I hope I catch most of it.

I think evolutionary astrologers (and possibly German astrologers, with their culture's love of order??) are dealing with an esthetic or design problem, not a chart interpretation problem, in wanting to assign new sign rulers.

...the classical exaltation scheme *calls for* extension, IMO, because as we know it, it looks kind of unfinished.

I mean, a lot of us are OK with a "messy" or asymmetrical horoscope set of domiciles and dignities. It is what it is. The question is whether assigning a new ruler (or in the case of Pluto, assigning an older modern ruler differently) helps is to a better job of assessing problems that real people actually care about in their real lives.

If your objective is not helping real people with real problems in real time, then your more elegant design solution risks making astrology irrelevant.

Seriously. I read charts for people who ask about how their synastry with their new live-in partner looks, whether her husband is going to jail, or whether she has incurable cancer. Please explain how a more elegant-looking chart would help me to give them more accurate answers.

We've all dealt with the "spiritual seekers," but in my experience there are relatively few of them compared with people with truly pressing practical problems. [A lot of my chart-reading is on the Astrodienst English language boards.] Then I think astrology needs to be more universal than simply targeting a few "trans-personal" souls.

[I am speaking as someone with Pluto conjunct and parallel my moon, Uranus conjunct MC trine sun, and Neptune in the first house, incidentally.]

Further, Liz Greene apparently was able to practice as a consulting psychologist back-in-the-day when no one questioned her degree from a long-defunct L. A. diploma mill. She went on to acquire a credential from a Jungian institute, not from a comprehensive university psychology department. When she finally got a Ph. D. in 2010 from an accredited British university (Bristol) later in life, she got it from the history department, not in psychology. Psychology today is not such a branch of the humanities.

See David Roell's biographical piece at http://www.astroamerica.com/greenebio2.html

This is not to take away from Liz Greene's considerable publication record-- or from your achievements-- but just to say that astrologers often mean something different by "psychology" than licensed psychologists do.

Michael, I realize that the term "science" has a secondary meaning of simply a body of knowledge. But the primary meaning of "science" includes physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy biology, &c, and their integrative fields like molecular biology, geophysics, and biochemistry. Currently these fields operate at a level that the typical astrologer cannot imagine.

If you disbelieve me, please phone up your nearest university and ask for a professor of one of those fields who is willing to give you a departmental tour and explain to you what their research is all about. Take her out to lunch and interview her about how her scientific field operates today.

Maybe you mean social science? Behavioral science? Again, interview a professor in your nearest university department of psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, or whatever.

This isn't about dismissing "positivism." It is about intellectual rigor. Something that astrology and anthroposophy are not particularly known for.