Carelli Symbols PDF
Carelli Symbols PDF
Carelli Symbols PDF
A great heart, inborn kindness, courage and love of peace and concord;
smoothness and spontaneity; no afterthoughts or mental reservations;
hospitality and broadmindedness; many true friendships; love of art.
Symbol: A forest.
The subject will lead all his life or most of it in obscurity. He will be either
bodily disabled by blindness, deafness or otherwise; morally or
intellectually adrift; or steeped in the darkest misery. Whatever his plight,
he will have to face a long and hard ordeal. If he emerges at all from his
gloom, that can be ascribed only to a powerful, stalwart, plucky character
(which this degree certainly grants) and certainly not to any favorable
circumstances (excluded by this degree, unless other influences are at
work). Once he has the “dark night of the soul” and the obscurity of
misery behind his back, the native, hardened by the struggle, may assert
himself and even rise very high and reap a plentiful crop to reward his
nearly superhuman effort. He will then enjoy liberally what he conquered
and will exert imperiously but with a fatherly spirit the authority to which
he acquired the right.
Symbol: A feudal lord wearing his armor, the headgear over his eyes,
holding a bow and an arrow.
He loves the country and rural life and is a great sportsman. Yet he hates
violence and is a subtle diplomat. His success in life is assured provided he
can stay in his natural abode and avoid the hated novelties.
If cowardly, his life will be a grey one, dully monotonous in its boundless
misery and endless gloom. Luckily enough, he is not apt to live long.
Yet his never-falling, positive sense of reality always will lead him back to
the right path if vanity has led him astray, and will enable him to show it
to anyone willing to follow him.
Courage, nay daring; here too, as in the foregoing degree, the borders of
recklessness are skirted.
The native will be blessed with an inborn righteousness as well, and with a
mind open to truth. Should he be gifted for mental work, natural sciences
would be his branch; should he be particularly sensitive to spiritual forces,
he would have the gift of clairvoyance, perhaps of prophecy. Initiation is
not excluded. The other aspects of the horoscope will show. A great
fondness for hunting is to be expected.
To the mild-natured people born under this sign, the warning can be given
that indiscriminate generosity is not goodness, but weakness; that to yield
to the first corner and to resign one’s own duties toward oneself is to
resign one’s human dignity. Weakness and submissiveness are vices as
great as the virtues they pervert.
If this danger is not borne out by other threads in the astrologic pattern,
the native’s steady effort to rise higher and to improve his condition may
bear honor and distinctions in the social and civic fields. The native’s
rugged individualism may let his or her generous and lordly nature appear
extravagant.
Last, the theme may point only to a particular fondness for gold and gilt
fittings; the horoscope taken as a whole will have, as usual, to decide.
The sturdier the mind, the frailer will be the body, and the limbs often will
be puny and sickly.
Where other pointers do not help, he will be utterly poor and lonely, an
outcast, or worse, an outlaw heading for an obscure end, for exile and
perhaps even jail.
Symbol: A warrior whose iron armor coven him from his toes to his chin,
his head staying bare and unshielded.
The native is one whose idea of safety consists of shutting all windows,
without worrying in the least about the door left wide open. You cannot
very well say whether he is more likely to be a gentleman or a sharper. He
is certain to be reckless and to think he is high and dry when on the
contrary he is between the devil and the deep blue sea. He may often
have a faint heart and not a spark of faith in himself, and yet seek shelter
in the bosom of the most unreliable beings. Whether a man of honor or a
knave, he always will be taken in and left in the lurch by those upon
whom he relied. Should he by ill luck try his hand at stock-jobbing, he
would get into a mess headfirst.
The seaside dwellers who both till the soil and rake the sea are often
under this influence. By itself this degree does bestow luck, but not
exclusively in farming; it does not ensure renown to one dealing with
agriculture from a scientific viewpoint, like botany, agricultural economics,
statistics, etc.
More gaudy than elegant, precious rather than refined, sooner worldly
than lordly, very fond of luxury and display; the native may outwardly
appear a gorgeous personage, imposing in spite of his inward misery.
Inwardly he is torn by the ever-recurring clash between his craving for
pleasure and his sense of duty, without being able to give up to either of
them.
This degree by itself gives no love for work; however, if this should be
borne out by other aspects in his horoscope, the native would become
what I define as a laborious adventurer who might strike oil during his
industrious adventures, be they journeys or financial gambles; he may
even become famous. Gain, however, comes to him easier than thrift. He
can smell luck, but cannot spend with a pinch of salt what he laid hands
on.
This degree will give a keen intelligence, a very sociable and hearty
nature, a talkative disposition without a shadow of wantonness, a peaceful
yet courageous and resolute character. Such a personality will be
worshipped by some, envied or slandered by many, feared or respected
by all.
For all his love of peace and concord the native is by some karmic law
compelled to face some decisive fight, for which destiny exacts the
strictest self-control. Any rash act may lead to trouble, any show of light-
headedness may have fatal results owing to the plots of the envious
The native will have an eye on only gain; his life seems to have no other
aim. His soul may not be utterly devoid of feelings, but his craze and the
ensuing need of being constantly on the lookout will stifle them. He may,
therefore, become selfish, stingy, suspicious, hidebound, misanthropic,
and often unscrupulous. Whether driven toward the noble metal, as the
symbol has it, or toward other gains, the subject is more than likely to
work on a mine—and to kick the bucket there, too.
The native ought to remember Dante’s warning (Inf. 26, 119-20): You
were not born to vegetate like beasts, but to follow the path of truth and
virtue.
20-21 deg Aries
Seer Cherubel holds that this degree gives birth to the gravediggers and
undertakers. To him I leave the authority of this statement.
By itself this degree will not bring the native ill luck, but it is not ruled out
that his persistent shilly-shallying may attract a hail of misfortunes onto
him. He is likely to live in a muddle of laziness, bewilderment and
suspense leaving him powerless and puzzled; he will make a bad partner
and be ever beset by gloom. A bohemian’s untidiness will hold sway in
him and about him. An untalented musician, he prefers decadent authors,
loves the artificial life of modern towns and finds his congenial atmosphere
in dance halls, comic shows, etc.
What threatens him, his property and credit is, in a word, much more an
inborn weakness than ill luck; the native will get more luck than he
deserves. Little as he exerts himself to conquer his slackness, his
ambitions will be satisfied, if other stars help.
What this native is, what his skill, where his power and his shortcomings
lie, how far he is apt to influence the others and the others him, which
evils he is likely to work, which to heal, which to suffer—all this can be
shown only by the rest of the birth pattern. Only through its whole can we
establish whether his pugnacity is a sign of force or of weakness; i.e.,
whether the subject’s bite, or the one of his foes, is venomous, or both;
whether his is a real following or rather a drunken rabble in arms;
whether the cup he reaches out to mankind is brimming with wholesome
drugs, with dope, or poison; whether he is really original or rather
eccentric, an imaginative being or rather a daydreamer, an enthusiast or a
man perverted by fallacies. One thing is certain: the mark of fatality.
But to return. The vulgar expression “sexual need” never has fitted so well
as in this degree. It is more than a need; it is an inescapable necessity,
something fatal. Any attempt to repress will end in a female native’s
perversion or hysteria.
As to the other features of this degree, we may point out that the subject
will not strive too high, and will be content with eking out a living, which
will not be denied to him.
The native is obviously fond of fun and is rather wanton and carefree.
Male subjects may have trouble with the other sex; female ones have
been even too clearly described.
24-25 deg Aries
This degree awaken an ambition to rise very high, and they supply the
power to do so.
Makes one more active, fierce and independent, but restless and selfish as
well. The power it vouchsafes tends to drift into whimsical and intolerant
tyranny. There is no sense of justice, not the least trace of chivalry toward
foe or opponent. Hence the danger of being repelled into the nameless
herd after having taken the first steps toward power and glory.
This degree awaken an ambition to rise very high, and they supply the
power to do so.
Grants a nobler, a more spiritual (or artistic, scientific, or, otherwise) kind
of talent, but allows loss of independence. At any rate, where no other
aspects are in the way, the native’s success is assured on the bright path
he wants to follow. The support of the powerful will be more than
deserved, but the recognition and the official consecration of the native’s
merits, whatever they are, can be expected only from that source.
But the very circumstance of his high birth and obvious ascent will weigh
down the subject’s distinctive pride with lack of experience in life’s storms
and, barring pointers to the contrary elsewhere, will deprive him of the
power of recoil and of the art of passive resistance. He is more than
sturdy and powerful, but not enough broken in to man’s and destiny’s
dirty tricks, and will skittishly rear and prance rather than adopt the
elastic resistance tactics of those who had to conquer their territory step
by step.
Little as the stars may show the sign of drawbacks or reverses being more
probable than steady luck, the tree may crash and be uprooted, the native
may lose his brilliant position, and his family’s star may dim and set
forever.
A spontaneously vain and showy nature, whose body will brim over with
vitality; an unruffled temper coupled with a sound and fruitful
sensuousness; a character high in optimism and heartiness, bountiful and
free-handed. There is a gift of serious ponderation an unruffled and bright
mood, and a pinch of stubbornness.
The native will win people’s hearts through her own goodness and will get
plenty of useful advice and precious support from good friends. Especially
one (seldom more) female friend will supply most of the material help
needed.
The symbol may be taken literally when the horoscope as a whole leads to
the picture of a wet nurse. Should the native be a male, industry and
trade of milk products could be expected.
Whatever his social rank or his inherited means, the subject will have to
break painfully his path upwards in order to reach his aim. Where the rest
of the horoscope admits of luck, he will attain his goal through his
deliberate will to break through and his resistance to prolonged effort. Low
born, he may one day be called a self-made man. Of high birth and well-
to-do, he may well set his aim far beyond his inherited-not despicable-
level, but not beyond his reach, horse sense being one of the native’s
foremost gifts.
Should the rest of the picture show a vulgar being of low extraction, he
would be employed in heavy and well-rewarded work. Where pointers of
notoriety crop up, he will be a wrestling champion, a prizefighter or
something of the kind. On a somewhat higher level, we shall have Vergo’s
Mastro Don Gesualdo or, in an aristocratic family, a cadet son who will
work his way up with his sword and end by conquering a kingdom or
founding a dynasty.
A tough fighter, whether in real war or in the struggle for life, whose first
weapon is the steadfast doggedness with which he goes toward his aim,
shattering and crushing any hindrance that may bar his way, making it
into a further stepping stone for his climb.
Should the native have spiritual blinkers, this would result in a greater
concentration of effort.
He is simple and true to the core; hesitation and wavering are unknown to
him. He knows what he wants and likes to pay his price. He balks at no
problems but sees his job ahead and gets down to it.
Symbol: A virago leading by the bridle a horse entirely covered with iron
plate
The native will have to stand forever on the lookout ready to parry
unforeseen attacks, as his destiny has fierce struggles in store. But in
struggles he surely will thrive and revel as if it were his own element, and
he will engage himself in them to his utmost. He has a great will power, is
versed in tricks and makeshifts, and can be very reserved in spite of his
liking for arguments and polemics. Churlish and insensitive to pain, he
seems born to have things his own way in spite of the war furiously waged
against him on all sides. He may even be endowed with magic powers.
He must break the ominous spell isolating him spiritually from his kind if
he is not to find realized in himself the biblical threat, Vae soli (Woe to
him that is alone—EccI. 4:11). He must draw a wholesome lesson from his
disappointments and realize that he has produced them himself with his
wrong attitude of estrangement from life. Life must be loved if she is to
present us with her gifts; these are not to be frowned upon in comparison
with the unattainable daydreams, toyed with by cloud-dwellers apt to
slump defeated to the ground if they cannot reach their aim.
Any vital force that does not find a proper outlet will cease to flow. The
greater one’s inborn vitality, the more quickly idleness will blight It.
This influence points somehow to untimely love. The native may have
older people propose to her in her youth, or vice versa, will insist on
marrying a younger partner in her elderly age. The planned match risks to
come off whether the younger partner looks at it as a sincere and
generous gift of his or her youth, or is driven to it by base interest-where
the one alternative does not altogether shut off the other.
Aside from the question of love or marriage, the native will be luckier in
later years and will reap tardily the fruit of his days of labor.
The native will worship nature and at the same time be cordially
hospitable and open to mental intercourse with his fellow beings. A quiet,
unambitious hard worker, satisfied with what he earns, happy to have
earned it himself with the sweat of his brow; he has a good aptitude for
contemplative life and meditation.
It is not to be ruled out that such a smooth, innerly rich and outwardly
even temper may harbor an unsuspected longing for travel and adventure.
The native’s weakness is inability to hold the golden middle with regard to
sex. A passionate admirer of beauty, he may easily incur criticism owing
to his excesses; or on the contrary, withdraw into a nearly cloister-like
asceticism and forget life in order to pursue the incorruptible beauty of art
or to contemplate the cold gleam of science’s abstract truths.
A woman’s hair will draw more than a hundred yokes of oxen. Italian
proverb
This influence neither promises nor excludes intelligence by itself, but it
secures exceptional gifts elsewhere, like an uncommon beauty, surplus of
vigor, or both of them together. The native will gloat on such gifts and, in
particularly vulgar horoscopes, boast and display them, going out of his
own way to exhibit the innermost, and not always the most attractive,
sides of his or her person.
Unless other aspects point to a strong will power and high feelings, the
native will be a shallow-brained and cowardly being, in whom only lust is
deep-rooted. Though unfit for any long-winded, consequent and
methodical effort, the native’s charm may, however, give a powerful and
resolute heave to undertakings which humbler and better suited
performers will or would be able to carry out without the native’s help.
Fortune (at least for awhile) will shamelessly lavish her favors on him, and
make him, as long as luck lasts, the cynosure of all eyes. But woe betide
the day when luck leaves him in the lurch. He will be in for either mental
or bodily tortures.
The very figure of pater familias, or of the good housewife; love for one’s
home and large family, careful upbringing of one’s children and well-
meaning strictness toward one’s dependents. A humane, honest, peaceful
yet energetic nature, such as to attract the young and inspire confidence
in all. Love of nature and country life; good sense rather than common
sense? efficient running of affairs rather than mere routine.
The native will do his utmost for his children’s happiness, but is not in the
least certain to reach happiness for himself; on the contrary, when
particularly badly aspected elsewhere, he could look forward to death as a
release, though no attempt at self-inflicted death can be foreseen; the
good shepherd will not leave his flock.
The native may have two love affairs at the same time and handle them
with an artlessness bordering on foolishness and with an unrefined
simplicity verging on coarseness. He loves pleasure and enjoyments, is
self-indulgent and always worried about his own physical welfare, which
does not prevent his reaching an intellectual level above the average, his
mind being as supple in abstract things as it is clumsy in leading concrete
action, and this theoretic intelligence as sharp as his practical outlook is
blurred and blunted by his heavy sensualism.
If born poor, the native may manage to rise higher; if rich, he may
become famous. He is, however, likely to sell the bearskin before having
bagged it.
Rational logic will be hard put to explain why an envious, anarchic nature
is nearly an inseparable companion of artistic gifts. This native will
sometimes be an artist, often a refined aesthete, but invariably, unless
checked by other influences; an envious, quarrelsome being, ready to sow
discord around himself.
As to all envious people, others’ luck will prevent his own. Moreover, one
may well say that he is looking for trouble. Should the rest of the
horoscope sharpen this feature, the native would be fond of trespassing
against penal law, not out of any real wish for dishonest gain, but out of
spiteful fancy for what has been denied to him, which will prevent his
keeping and enjoying greater gains within reach and easily attained with
honest labor. More than fooling and damaging the others, such people end
by digging their own graves. But, as the proverb has it, forbidden fruits
taste better.
The native seems born to compose quarrels. His straight, peaceful, fair
mind has a smooth force in itself which is likely to compel respect
effortlessly and to inspire love of justice.
This is his showier side. Not less worthy of attention is the other one: a
way of getting down to his work and keeping fondly at it without fuss and
display, a feature which, if supported by other influences, may at times
lead the native to withdraw into himself, shutting him out of other
people’s company. This may temporarily blot out-never stifle-the native’s
instinct for human brotherhood.
Whether or not on the secret path, he will be comforted in his old age by
the fruits of his efficient work and his good actions.
14-15 deg Taurus
This degree tends to give a bold, icy temper if the Fire element is absent
from the rest of the pattern. Nevertheless, this somewhat uncouth being,
lost in his mighty visions and more or less indifferent to love, may have a
following of utterly devoted friends and of disciples not likely to forget his
teachings. In unusual and remarkable patterns, such a being may well end
by being looked at as a forerunner or a prophet by posterity, and his
doctrine may become an article of blind faith.
Symbol: The vision St. Thomas of Aquino had while trying to fathom the
mystery of God’s unity and trinity; a child trying to drain the ocean with a
pitcher.
(I do not know who the author of the perfect squelch was-”I do not need
your advice, I can make mistakes myself!” but he may have been born
under this star;). The native’s habit of thinking with his own head is apt to
make him unpopular; his failings will bring about his misfortune. His
intelligence is like a river liable to flood the barren sands of Utopia instead
of fertilizing the happy valley of originality. He is in for unceasing, often
wasted, labors, which will not make him move a step forward. There is a
guilty light-mindedness; the native will believe that he can solve single-
handed and in his own way certain problems which repose on natural
laws, as those of economics, dynamics and the like. On the other hand,
such a being can easily rely on Divine Providence and reach that absolute
faith which moves mountains and goes so far as to give sometimes
personal success in spite of rationalistic logic and science’s “infallibility.”
The native will easily fly off the handle and quickly work himself up to a
climax of frenzied and bloodthirsty rage, even if his own peevish and
quarrelsome temper has sown the seed of discord. According to his
background and breeding, he can make a sabreur of a ruffian, and can
reap the hatred of many, running the risk of wounds or death in duels or
brawls.
A gentle and sweet character, even too little self-assertive, which will tend
to flabbiness, indecision, passivity and gloom. A certain typically feminine
futility will accompany an equally feminine skill in getting things done. A
voice of pure musical pitch, an unconstrained speech, a naturally smart
and graceful demeanor.
This degree’s positive side may well be said to consist in a great moral or
material strength at the service of ambition, which may, when other
aspects help, lift the native into eminence.
The negative side consists in envy and lack of moderation. The native will
nearly invariably be an impulsive rashling, or a lowly meddler, but in any
case an envious being. He cannot find a middle course between those two
extremes. When he does not plot mean ambushes, he will show off
arrogantly and bully people about. In either case, his stumbling stone is
his envy, a vice that, as Sannazzaro puts it, gnaws at itself, or, as
exemplified in Dante’s figure of embodied envy, Filippo Argenti, tears its
own flesh with its own teeth. While stabbing somebody else in murderous
frenzy, one may well injure self, as happened to Caesar’s murderers.
Surrounded by loving relatives and friends, the native will see his hard
work crowned by success in the end.
Symbol: The Moon in its first quarter. The thin, bright crescent,
encompassing the planet’s lower rim, seems to hold the dimly looming orb
as an earthly offer to Heaven.
Assuming as we did that no degree of the zodiac can convey any meaning
if not looked at in the light of the horoscope as a whole, this rule does not
fit any degree so thoroughly as this fifty-fourth degree which has
something mysterious, or transcendent, in itself. Should the rest of the
pattern be of a spiritual nature, an intense but hidden inner life would be
the result. If the other features concur into a majestic picture, the native
may have been assigned a mission reaching beyond his country and his
age. “At the limit,” to borrow a mathematical expression; that is, in such a
cosmically vast and sublime horoscope as can be drawn in the heavens
only once in mankind’s history, this degree becomes one among many
other components from which, written in star characters; the
announcement of the Redemptor’s birth was given.
This can be stated fearlessly. Here is one of the many astrological clues
which revealed to the three Magi from the East that God had taken human
shape.
Especially the words of the biblical beer Isaiah -later called the fifth
evangelist-fall in with the influence of this degree. Foreseeing the
godman’s destiny, the prophet defined him as a being despised and
rejected of men (is. 53:57; Luke 4:24).
And now, let us look at the destiny of a common being marked by this
degree. He will be an honest worker, pure in heart, full of a candid faith in
mankind, and therefore, in danger of being shamelessly cheated and
exploited. An humble and meek being, he will refrain from maltreating his
neighbors and showing his fist to defend himself or his own interests. His
inner nobility will hardly be discerned by those dealing with him; people
will usually despise him and not think twice before taking advantage of a
good heart, too feeble in the eyes of the world.
The subject’s inner world will stay closed and unknown to all. Yet this is no
cowardly nature, rather an arrogant one; the native is innerly proud,
haughty, overbearing, but not vain. As he is spiritually isolated among his
fellow beings, he will have justice done to himself, if necessary, by having
recourse to arms. As he is misunderstood, he will endeavor to have his
own way even by resorting to violence; as long as his strength does not
fail him, he will see subdued servants around himself, never friends.
He will risk either to die a stray dog’s death, or to be kicked and spat upon
on his death bed, like the lion in the fable.
25-26 deg Taurus
Symbol: A lonely lady wandering about singing and picking flowers one by
one. (The image of Matelda in Dante Purg. 28,4041).
On the other hand, should the native’s pattern exclude magic and any
tendency to the acquisition of occult power, this degree could be of the
greatest use to anyone striving after success in the usual sense, as it
bestows eloquence, a knack of running things efficiently, a liking for hard
work, and an inventive mind (not necessarily in the field of practical
application), a sparing temperament, something intriguing which is
certainly not made to alienate people, and does not hinder conquest of
wealth or power. Which one it is going to be ought to be decided by the,
horoscope viewed as a whole.
Someone has said that heaven is for the unsatisfied. Sometimes this may
be true, but not in this case.
If the native has a perfect mental balance, he can enjoy happiness. But he
is likely to be tormented by ambitions and dreams of power past
realization. On the other hand, he does not lack steadfastness, but his
daydreams are widely different from real life. The more he can put up with
this latter (drab and dull as it can be), the better for him; his life may be
long and peaceful. If unsatisfied and craving more, he would be but a
castle-builder.
The female native will find it perfectly normal to order and bully the
husband around. Should other features bear out a hard and domineering
temper, with an outer display of bluster, we should have a regular
Xanthippe, who will not see anything in her husband but a burden-bearing
and brooding animal, of course, exclusively reserved, to herself, and at
the limit will martyrize him systematically and go so far as to drive him to
murder her, unless he has a Socrates’ endurance.
Look around yourself for one with whom you may eat and drink, before
you choose your food and beverage, for a dining table without a friend is
what lions and wolves have from Epicurus’ fragments
All of which is likely to happen, but the other astrologic aspects must, as
usual, not be lost sight of. Friendship may be interesting and purposeful,
and the unconditional surrender of one’s home may lead to family strife
and married unhappiness on the side of the more confiding and naively
faithful partner. Or worse, should the horoscope point to lack of dignity
and self-respect, it could be assumed that favors and protection have
been curried by conniving to one’s own wife’s misbehavior and support for
her lover from the betrayed husband and friend. Even if such a point is
not reached, the friendship’s moral influence may prove harmful to self-
respect.
In female charts, this degree may portend laborious and even deadly
deliveries.
The rest of the pattern must, as usual, suggest how to interpret this
correctly. Whatever share of mental gifts the stars have meted out to him,
the native has the power of concentration and can, as the case may be,
discover, innovate or find original practical applications, as the other
components show.
He may be a daring and gifted reformer of a natural science (physics,
chemistry, etc whom the misoeists will oppose violently and the rivals try
to rob of his discoveries; but he will triumph over both. Where the
astrologic pointers are all of a spiritual nature, the innovation and the
attending fights both may refer to spiritual sciences and to religious
reform. In the case of an artist they may refer to till-then-untried
technical audacities, or the like. In a less bight horoscope and with police
pointers, the native will be a new Sherlock Holmes breaking new ways
open to investigation and fearlessly hand-shackling the criminals; and
getting the truth from them without having recourse to violence. Or he
may be a criminal of genius, like unscrupulous Aresene Lupin versus
Sherlock Holmes, a bright plagiarist, etc.
Symbol: Orpheus, playing his lyre, moves the stones to build a town.
Poetry and music, a great imaginative power, love of the marvelous. The
native’s personality shows two features that will seem irreconcilable to
anyone wishing to apply the iron rules of logic to human psychology.
On one hand the subject is a daydreamer who cannot keep in order what
concerns his own person. A whimsical being, whose mind is forever
pursuing dreams of beauty, he cannot stem the rush of his private
expenses; he is in love with everything beautiful, luxurious and refined
and will have it, cost what it may. This produces a chaotic disorder in his
household, and goes together with a merry sprightliness and a happy
inconscience of some practical duties.
On the other hand, destiny may have saddled him with the burden of a
society of which. he is the founder, the head, or the leader. It would seem
to stand to reason that he should be unequal to such a task. Yet this
bohemian shoulders such responsibility with a swing and a smile and will
prove as wise, as eloquent and efficient in setting in motion gigantic
things as he proved unfit and helpless in running his own estate.
In a word, the native is a true artist, even if he does not write poetry or
music, and will prove more at home in flying than in treading hard ground.
Symbol: An arbalester.
As the symbol clearly shows, this degree has an influence like the first of
Sagittarius, namely a courage verging on daring, an adventurer’s
temperament; a lightning-like, jerky and jumpy way of acting; a gift for
polemics, a dialectic zest; a stinging sarcasm; an orderly, methodical,
precise, ruthless intelligence. The ability to earn money is remarkable, but
below the native’s unappeasable thirst for money. An unbridled ambition
fills the native with envy and drives him into quarrels where he foolhardily
stakes everything, burning the bridges behind him in order to attain his
aim at all costs. Whether the attempt is to be successful will be shown by
the horoscope as a whole.
There is the greatest adherence to, and at the same time the greatest
detachment from, reality. A great sensitivity to which no inner feeling
corresponds. The native is righteous, clever, has a juridical mentality, a
faculty of unbiased judgment, and is aloof from the impact of passions. He
is outwardly smart and inwardly cold-hearted.
The native’s mind is adorned with an education above his social status,
but with no trace of cerebralism, as his fundamental sanity and poise
would not admit of anything morbid. The subject will be lucky as his legal
or business activity will grant him riches, welfare, perhaps renown. Lack of
feeling will, however, make him unpopular. He will shrink from the
limelight into the coziness of home and will prefer the company of animals
to that of his fellow beings, which will bless the and of his long life.
This degree’s influence can hardly be depicted with sharp outline. Its
dualistic and self-contradictory nature will bestow two opposite features,
which could, however, even co-exist in the same native; but interference
by other radical influences or the effects of breeding may well let one side
fade out of view.
One side of the character is rough, irascible, reckless, often breeding strife
and contention; anyhow well-equipped for prompt action and violent
activity, as the military career, surgery, arts and crafts connected with
iron and fire (fireman, smith and the like).
On the other hand, the native has commercial aptitudes, loves comfort,
desk activities and administrative jobs, leaving others to do the hard
work; he is fond of home and family even if his character’s other side may
lead to domestic strife. Destiny threatens the home with the omen of a
sudden, fiery outburst apt to upset it from its foundations or to shatter its
very core.
Other astrological traits must say whether this is inevitable and whether
the native’s destructive features or other causes are to blame.
Symbol: The good Samaritan succors the Jew whom the highwaymen
have beaten to within an inch of his life (Luke 10:30-35).
A great heart fired and inspired with the wish to help mankind, to whose
service a great store of energy is placed with somewhat childish
enthusiasm. Sympathy for the poor and the sick is apt to take concrete
shape, and there is a sincere wish to succor and heal social misery.
The reverse of the coin consists in the delusion of reaching such aims with
merely material means. Should the horoscope not bear the imprint of a
deeply religious spirit, the native, acting on purely human grounds, will
stick to the faddish concept that vice and crime can be fought by
spreading well-being and strengthening the police forces. In a word, a
well-meaning, well-fed, well-bred, humdrum middle-class fellow, whose
limited mental powers will not prevent delving deep into medicine and
political economics, to pursue his ambitious but charitable aims.
Luck may smile on this good fellow and lavish him the means to carry out
his beneficent plans.
An honest being, brimming over with plans and faith in the future. Others
may be wrongly led, by some lack of decision on his part, to mistrust his
purposes. Anyhow some hitch will hinder or delay the ripening of his
plans. Besides such a drag chain on his undertakings, sudden death or
unpleasant surprises may take the wind off his sails and nip his
enterprises in the bud. A steadfastness ready to face any tests is therefore
the catchword here.
And of a wolf which seemed to harbor all cravings and yearnings in her
scraggy shape. -Dante, Int. 1,49.50
The native cannot be denied inner power, but lacks character. He is more
active than constant and even more restless than active. A man of
bristling project, though vague and blurred, if lofty; the native runs the
risk of leading astray his winged gifts. Especially natives having the Sun
above the horizon and their Ascendant in this seventy-third degree are a
living proof of the saying: “Hell is paved with good intentions.”
Evil associations may lead the native far enough on the wrong path, but
even in compact with worse beings than himself, he will still bear a sign of
his fallen nobility; mental subtlety and the faithful keeping of secrets.
Too few scruples and too many ruses. But to no avail, as in spite of tricks,
the ill-begotten wealth may often have to be given back, as one cannot
fool all the people all the time.
Should the horoscope in its other aspects not admit of dishonesty and
incorrect methods, and should it point to an intense intellectual life, this
native’s subtlety may sublime into the meanderings of abstract reasoning.
This would give rise to a mastermind in dialectical distinguos, the
matchless skill of great logicians, and, in some cases, of the giants of
thought.
Should the native successfully stem the onrush of his mental turmoil and
impose himself a method, an inner order and an intellectual discipline, the
lively originality and the boundless manifoldness of his versatile mind may
recommend him to everyone’s admiration and open a bright career for
him.
I said if. Otherwise, his restless desultoriness will lead him to do too much
at one time, getting bun all tied up in the knots of his scattered activity.
What could have been original becomes eccentric; whatever is gained in
extension is lost in depth.
15-16 Gemini
Good initiative and charitable work, however, will be profitable only for
others and unfruitful for the native, who will be a modest, peaceful,
though emotional, being devoid of the sound judgment and the luck
necessary to reap the fruit of his long labors.
16-17 Gemini
Should he work with supernatural means, one has then to bear in mind
that magic consists only in working without hands and walking without
feet. Let those who have ears understand. But magic practice will not suit
anyone who is not physically whole.
Symbol: Two foxes in relay according to their custom. (One rouses the
game while the other lurks in ambush ready to stalk it.)
A wretched and roaming gypsy’s life. The native’s mind may well be
endowed with some artistic gifts, but he will lack character and will shun
constant work. Forsaken by all, he will painfully drag his tramp-like
existence through the world. A deep religious feeling may give a sense to
such a life.
Some of the bright gifts of this native are not in keeping with the whole of
his being. If the rest of his horoscope restricts his activities to the practical
field, his hard work, well-trained mind, and influential friendships will
permit him to achieve some aims. He may improve his position, gain
wealth for himself and his family, etc. On the contrary, should other
astrologic data confirm, or simply not hinder, the occult, mystical, or
spiritual powers present in him, the native may attain higher results, but
on the indispensable condition that he take in a reef, not trust his visions
too much, and not overreach himself. Above all, he ought to remember
that anyone who rouses powers beyond his own control runs the risk of
being crushed by them.
This applies, of course, to political power as well, though the dinger is far
greater in the super-sensible field.
The native can hardly expect a free and independent position as, in spite
of his quarrelsome, eccentric or otherwise unsociable character, he will
have to put up with playing second fiddle to someone.
He will not shun work, but will be very fond of sport and full of competitive
spirit, which will let him miss many a good occasion, and eventually be his
undoing if the horoscope is bad.
A woman born under this degree will land the man she wishes, though
leaving him the pleasant delusion of having made his own choice, if she is
wise enough not to let him go too far before wedlock. Should she have
other aims, she could have all the men she wants, and would manage to
stay on friendly relations with them afterwards as well. The horoscope as
a whole will show whether she will be prodigal of her own or of herself.
If the horoscope at large does not offer any particular hints of good luck,
the battles of life will prematurely sap the native’s energies. He will feel
powerless to put his otherwise original ideas into practice, will not only
refrain from reaction, but from action as well, and will give up the struggle
and waste away. His breakdown ought to be followed by the estrangement
of his children and everyone else; his old age will be miserable and lonely.
A demonstrative and jovial fellow whom all will like. The native would
seem unable to live alone, as the frankness with which he declares his
friendship, the selfless pleasure he feels in the company of his comrades,
and the proof of true friendship he can give when needed, will win him the
largest possible number of hearts. Few people will enjoy so many and so
sincere affections.
The native’s mind might turn to deep scientific research. He is in love with
fine arts and music but his inborn innermost gift is the art of persuasion.
This degree’s influence is in open contrast with the one of the sign to
which it belongs, as it muffles down its foremost feature-reason, and
sharpens, on the other hand, its second main trait-strife. The native
seems to be born to argue and quarrel, but not on the solid ground of
logic as he does not want either to offer reasons or to listen to reason and
simply sticks to conventional ideas and popular fads current at his time in
order to support his arguments.
Yet he likes arts, though in a conformist way, and might even cultivate
them, but without the least trace of personal style, An ambitious, jealous
being, alive only to his own merit and blind to the merit of others;
stubborn, unreasonable, quarrelsome and revengeful, he is not liked by
many and can go so far in his blunt recklessness as to court death at the
hand of others. The rest of the pattern might emphasize this threat or
offset it, as the case may be.
On the contrary, where other aspects are mainly negative, these features
will shift into opposite polarities or will stray into corresponding vices.
Kindness will become affected courtesy, prestige will be disfigured into
autocracy, love of hunting into cruelty or even sadism; there will be
misuse of power closely followed by ruin and misery. Likewise,
imaginative power will sidle into fruitless daydreaming, too many plans
will cram the mind, all shifting and inconclusive, as no steady power
behind them will help carry them out.
Symbol: The cow, the goat, and the ewe in society with the lion
As in the previous degree, this one also can make the native into a fond
and efficient hunter, but the point lies elsewhere and can be summarized
in the expression, a lion’s share.
Listing and close ties of affection, probably legal union, tender and
sensuous married love; the native will be completely given over both to
her marriage partner and to her own relatives. Inborn goodness and
fidelity, natural merriness and fortune’s deserved smile will make her
popular and universally liked. These bonds of affection will, however, tie
her and limit her freedom of movement, as well as her chances of fully
exploiting her good luck.
Many are the native’s gifts: a musical aptitude with a pronounced sense of
rhythm; a faculty for exact sciences in general, especially mechanics; a
rigorous logical mind, keen on seizing the cause-effect relation in things; a
sense for business, particularly for sea-borne trade (provided that the
family does not contrast the native’s passion for travel). The other aspects
will have to show which of these tendencies ought to be followed.
Symbol: A scene from the eighteenth century; two seated ladies, and two
squires standing in front of them.
The native will be innerly split into two contrasting halves-a thinker’s mind
and a lecher’s tendencies; an old man’s sedate wisdom and a boy’s
reckless wishes; feverish activity alternated with dull idleness; refined
servility strangely coupled with a refined, aristocratic haughtiness. The
result may as well be fame as infamy or success closely followed by failure
due to passional follies.
Here the challenge to the existing spiritual order will reach its uttermost
degree. An orgiastic temper, a defiant impiety, a craving for sexual or
alcoholic intoxication, misuse of drugs or dope, the practice of Satanism.
In the eyes of the world there is no understanding the native, who will
seem eccentric, extravagant, if not altogether a lunatic. But his intellect is
quite healthy, and he does not mind at all openly countering other
people’s prejudices, which he is content to ignore. His heart is healthy as
well, but lust is apt to bite deeply into it, ravaging his feelings and
threatening mental sanity with its intoxication. The social and financial
position, health and the whole being are in danger owing to this.
At the lowest level of intelligence, this degree will produce a type of blase
townsman, looking at things with a Mephistopheian smile.
Symbol: Alcidiades, walking through Athens with his famous dog, whose
“most beautiful tail” he has cut.
The native is a spendthrift, devoid of practical sense. He is not devoid of
heart and has much tact, but is persuaded that everything is due to him,
and might, therefore, appear unjust. He is nice but vain, might sometimes
sound high-flown or appear gaudy, but will give himself airs; nothing
matches his fatuousness and extravagance. His recklessness might go so
far as to bring about his own ruin.
The rest of the horoscope is expected to tell us what all this will come to.
Should the horoscope bear any other features pointing that way, that lack
of regard might stray into ferocious brutality, that lordly spirit into
arbitrary overbearingness, that warlike strain into sheer quarrelsomeness,
that superiority into selfishness, isolation and indifference to other
people’s sufferings.
The virile qualities will be courted and smiled upon by a true fortuna
virilis. Of obscure or even very humble birth, the native will reach the top
in his chosen career; unless unfavorably aspected elsewhere, he will have
all his opponents topple and crash out of sight, and even before reaching
the summit the conqueror will see no rivals around him.
A hard working, patient, thrifty being, who will be only too modest and will
that trifle of individual aggressiveness necessary for self-assertion. He will
not be kept back by cowardice, but rather by a shy reserve, by an inborn,
humble goodness making him put up with an obscure life in which he feels
happy. It may take him long to make up his mind as to his own road, but
once at it he will draw on all his resources in order to carry his work out to
perfection, even in inconspicuous things, and will meet with real success
in his own field.
As with all shy people of this kind, he is apt to develop a great eloquence
once he has conquered his inhibitions and will then move and stir his
listeners all the more, finally overcoming the pent up feeling which made
him tongue-tied. As he has an eminent juridical and social sense, he may
make a good lawyer and a good political speaker, but will not become a
king of the bar or a party leader, as he has not that minimum of
charlatanism and intellectual exhibitionism needed. A less noble horoscope
might lead the native into a police career, but his natural goodness will
make him prefer the offices of the C.I.A. or a detective’s profession, to the
direct guardianship of public order.
A mighty and productive will power, firmness and decision, activity and
steadiness. The native will be honest, generous and hard working; he will
display a great vitality, both physically and mentally. He seems to be
endowed with magnetic force.
Luck will be deserved; his renown will be good. The native, or his
undertakings, will give many people work and bread; his own work will
thrive and he will reap the fruit thereof in his late years; all this provided
that the rest of the pattern does not exclude success. The whole of the
horoscope will show which is the pursued aim and on what plane the
native’s activity will develop.
Symbol: Some very young fishermen, still nearly boys, try to disentangle
their boat stranded on a shoal and containing fishing tackle and string
instruments for their leisure.
There will be repeated shipwreck. The native’s affairs will slacken often,
and he will be left stranded. If very unfavorably aspected elsewhere, a
final failure might be expected. In most cases, however, the native will
pull himself out of the scrape and begin all over again as if nothing had
happened.
There is one thing the native ought never to do, even if he dies to: to sail.
The native is far from being sociable; on the contrary, he is cruel and
arbitrary. He might be the author or the victim of a crime, as the pattern
will show, toward life’s end.
I, who can turn and change in a thousand ways. —Dante, Paradiso, 5,99
......There is no learning if one does understand, remembers not. -
Dante,ibid., 5,42
The family might try to hinder and thwart the native’s ideas or initiative.
He seems likely to be destined to travel and change his residence often.
His relatives, however, do not seem likely to hinder this.
And Jesus asked him, saying. What is thy name? And he said, Legion;
because many devils were entered into him. — Luke 8:30
The native will unaccountably be laden with titles, honors and benefices in
spite of his utter worthlessness, as he will be able to hide his slow wits
and lack of personal ideas from the world’s gaze under a display of great
self-assurance and successful bluff. An uninspiring and unimaginative
crammer who never will attain real culture, a jingo rather than a patriot,
sophisticatedly shallow and destitute of real personality, an empty
ranterer or even a vicious hypocrite, he never will be more than a stooge,
ready nevertheless to deliver his void phrases with consequential
pompousness and to cloak with hideous priggishness his blunt indifference
for anything that does not touch him directly.
A dull and sluggish being, possibly potbellied and anyway unable to move,
he will have to make up for his lack of intelligence by having recourse to
tricks. His only redeeming virtue will be a watchful and tireless attention
paving his way to self-assertion, and a deep attachment to his home.
This degree will grant courage, toughness, ready wit, inner and outer
strength, a scheming and adroit mind, an intelligence that does not
exclude cunning; in a word, all the makings of a great captain and the
requirements for engaging in a successful battle. These traits will be
enhanced by courteous manners, great tact and a good deal of tactical
ability.
The native’s foes will be his matches as far as gallantry and doggedness in
fight goes, but will be unworthy of him for their unfairness and
wickedness. A clue as to whether he will leave the battlefield as a
conqueror or a loser may be drawn from his horoscope at large. But even
in the latter case, his enemies will not be able to make him bite the dust.
The subject is weak with himself, has unhealthy tastes and an unbalanced
will; he is cowardly and overbearing, shy and foolhardy, intrusive and
lazy. His whole life is aimed at pleasure; he loves gambling most. When
his money and vigor run low, or when he is sated and disappointed with
life and has exhausted all other ways to enjoy himself, he will seal his own
ruin by taking to booze and dope. Should other factors concur, his likely
pitfalls will be sharpening, misuse of trust, embezzlement, theft, rape,
corruption of minors, and homosexuality. Should the stars portend mental
deficiency as well, the native could even stoop to murder. (Criminology
teaches that stupid thieves kill and clever ones steal without attempting to
take their victims’ lives.)
Symbol: A renaissance gentleman, sword and dagger at his side, plays the
flute before a book-stand on which an ancient illuminated score rests.
Other courtiers stand respectfully around.
Gallantry in war, civil courage, a great passion and gift for art, a taste for
polemics. The native will be capable of profound thought, will love books
and research and will hold, for all his refinement, a marked sway over
others. His is a terribly difficult character. He will be apt to fly off the
handle for a trifle; he will be very kind when not roused, but will frighten
everyone when angered. Should the horoscope bear evil influences, his
artistic gifts would degenerate into histrionics, his gallantry into
quarrelsomeness, his spirit of research into fruitless bookishness.
Great as the genius bestowed by this degree may be, it does neither give
nor deny a creative turn of mind by itself; it only secures success in
rendering and performing other people’s works (as a dramatic actor, an
opera singer, an orchestra player or conductor). That he may work
creatively himself, he needs other stars to determine in what particular
art, or other trade, his talent or genius may take concrete shape.
The parents might be of illustrious descent, even if they do not display
their title officially.
A lustful and lazy being, of ready wit and watchful character, he wants to
be left in peace-that is, in idleness-and does not bear anyone other than
his master daring to prod him in the ribs to rouse him from his slumber
(“Do not rouse a sleeping dog” —Italian proverb.)
For his master he has a faithful attachment which is both base and heroic,
despicable and moving. A thorough craven, he will boast of his master’s
valiant deeds; in his own utter poverty, he will brag of his master’s
wealth.
The native is hale and hearty, though no great friend of water and soap.
What has been said till now about the native’s despicable nature ought not
to deceive us as to the real, indisputable usefulness of his task. As long as
mankind stays what it is, policemen, customs officers, sextons, career
soldiers, jail wardens, harlots, are all necessary evils. The frontier needs
watchdogs, justice needs bloodhounds, and the male needs the female.
What is certain is the native’s love of travel, a veritable craze for journeys,
which, however, may prove far from lucky.
A haughty, fussy, dazzlingly showy, vain and lustful being, this native will
incline toward a fantastic mood, driving her wayward refinement to the
verge of morbid freakishness. She is inclined to strain at a gnat and to
swallow a camel, this crotchetiness being perhaps due to an intensely
artificial upbringing. Where other factors bear it out, the native’s life might
end painfully or tragically, and a pall of gloom might set upon those forced
to live in the enervating, stifling air this being spreads around herself.
An inborn drive to rise higher and higher, to step aside from the beaten
track and to follow new, untried paths. Other pointers have to show
whether this impulsiveness will stray into fitful unbridledness, rudeness or
brutality, or open its way upward into selfless dedication to an idea. The
need to soar may be taken in a literal (mountaineering, aviation), financial
or spiritual sense.
In any case, the danger of tumbling on the way is attendant upon this
degree, as well as a manly daring and the chance of overcoming all
obstacles at the end of’ the road, thus victoriously winding up the climb to
the peak of glory or, in an humbler way, the scaling of a still untrodden
mountain top.
The whole of the pattern will give a clue to the particular case. Anyway,
the native is no common being, as he seems to dispose of always fresh
energies and exceptional gifts; but he is unsteady and, at times, too rash.
Great is his love of nature, irresistible his need to wander and open up
unexplored territories.
In a humble horoscope, he will be an alpine guide; when the necessary
scientific features are present, he might become a great explorer.
According to seer Charubel, this degree rules over work connected with
catering for the public and produces innkeepers, managers of restaurants,
or butchers; which I am quoting here under his responsibility. I personally
think that an uncommon gift of gab has fallen to the native’s share,
enabling him to shine as a teacher.
Such vices are hard to sublimate into virtues. The native’s religious spirit
would offer a chance, although exactly the contrary-namely, perversion of
that outer intolerant and hypocritical formalism-might be expected. But
the importance of the other factors and their marshalling, can never be
overstressed.
There will be no lack of enemies, whom the native will not fear. He may
instead go out of his own way to bargain with them, if this can lift him but
one step higher. As soon as he has the whole flight of steps behind
himself, he will have them all under his heels and will rule over them all as
a tyrant.
The strongest man is the one who stands most alone. Ibsen, An Enemy of
the People
A high-spirited being, full of noble purposes and setting his aims high,
cherishing freedom above all earthly things and driving this love so far as
to stray away from his kind into silence and seclusion. If other stars help,
this will not prevent his doing great works likely to exert a deep influence
on his neighbors and to leave a mark in history. The secret of his success
is his unshakable self-confidence supported by a fiery will.
Under less favorable influences his daring may become a reckless love of
adventure, his zest for work wild and fickle fanaticism, his lofty aspirations
selfish ambitions.
Travel will play some role in his life. Concurrent emergence of suitable
factors might make him into a pioneer.
The tumbles that destiny has in store for the native might affect his
financial life (bankruptcy) as well as his health (bodily falls). Therefore,
violent sports, air travel and alpinism ought to be discouraged.
The native is deeply in love with nature and its beauty, its contemplation
being for him a source of fresh strength. He abhors whatever is unnatural
and can be naturally kind and attract lasting affections. He lives in
harmony with the cosmos and the beings inhabiting it. Yet he can display
a remarkable political skill and a more remarkable administrative ability.
Barring pointers to the contrary, the native is sure to get money galore as
soon as he is of age, whatever the conditions of his family at his birth.
Unfortunately, the gift for earning money might be warped into greed, and
his foresight into stinginess.
On the other hand, even that admiration of natural beauty might edge off
into loafing, political tact give way to scheming, servilism or even worse;
even the relations with one’s neighbors might turn into rivalry. Only a look
at the whole can enlighten us as to the right meaning one can ascribe in
each concrete case to this dual influence.
Where there are pointers of honesty and decency, this degree bestows a
superior intelligence and a sense for business. Unfavorably aspected, it
will produce a low cunning leading to unscrupulous doings, cheating, and
even theft.
His force does not lie in his thought, but in his will power, which, if backed
by other good aspects elsewhere, can really be above average. He will
disdainfully reject help and shun dependence, plunge boldly into action
and engage single handed in fierce struggles-and will still succeed best in
that very field any logical mind would deem the least congenial to him,
namely, government career. He might take to the sea and have to stand
the hardest ordeals and face the worst dangers in his career, which, in the
light of abstract reasoning, would seem to fit him to a tee.
Symbol: Alone and weaponless, Samson tears up with his bare hands the
lion come to attack him
"Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth
weakness." Judges 14:14
But for modesty, the native is endowed with all the qualities required to
master himself and others. A man of high standing, he will reap victory
over his enemies.
Should he curb his inborn daring and strength with mildness and restraint,
he might become a benefactor of his own subjects. Otherwise his
exceptional power and unchallenged faith in himself will drift into high-
handedness, inner dignity will stray into exterior pompousness; the
flattering of men and the enticements of women around him to which he is
apt to lend much too willing an ear, will prove his undoing.
The native’s karma might be bound or interwoven with that of his nation,
a thing of which he might have to bear the consequences as well for evil
(obscurity and oblivion, at least for awhile) as for good (lasting renown).
The horoscope is a whole will have to lead the interpretation on this point.
The omen of the shipwreck might literally come true; there might be
shipwreck in the real sense of the word.
This symbol, while on one side pointing to the unripeness of the native’s
lion nature, emphasizes on the other side what chances he has to
progress.
The horoscope as a whole will show whether the native will be able to
open his eyes within the bounds of this one embodiment, and whether he
will succeed in gradually developing the powers he hides slumbering in
himself. If so, stumbling and tottering, forcing his way through pitfalls and
thorny briers, he will work himself up to the highest peaks of human
achievement. Then the very utterness of his ignorance and his native
childishness might enable him to do some great and original work,
untrammeled as lie is by the yoke of scholastic tradition. His very lack of
moral tenets might lead him up to a noble and freer stale of morality,
where convention and prejudice play no part. In front of the mystery of
the universe he might preserve that divine sense of wonder from which
the sophisticated fool struggles to free himself.
All this might happen. The subject is, of course, unlikely to follow the
entire path of such an evolution till its end within the short span of one
earthly life. In most cases he will be able to open his eyes only in a
following embodiment, in the present one the native is likely to grope in
the dark. Even worse, pushed back on his defensive by the first rude jolts
from the outside world, and unable to account for them, he might freeze
into immobility, shun any further struggle and take a mistrustful attitude
toward life, Thus, while trying to avoid development through experience,
he never will avoid suffering. Driven by his childish nature, he will flare up
quickly into a mood of unjustified elation, and will subside into
discouragement and despair even more quickly.
Symbol: On the polar pack a white bear lies in ambush by a cleft, waiting
for a seal to emerge for air
All virtues born of prudence and reserve; and all attendant vices as well:
suspiciousness, cunning, and malice.
The native might display great activity and practical sense and might push
his endurance in work to a superhuman level, but always with some
selfish goal in sight. His gaze is sharp and unfailing, but he will not make
up his mind before ripe reflection.
Symbol: A snake.
Bodily strength and inner power, which might degenerate into material
and moral violence; daring bordering on recklessness; fondness of sport
contests, weapons, polemics and duels, with a quarrelsome bent toward
aggression in word and fact.
The native might have a mission to fulfill might become a great military or
political ruler and stand out like a giant. Something, however, will
undermine his greatness at its very foundations; his inordinate pride or
his self-ostentation.,
On the noblest souls this degree may bestow a nearly heavenly wisdom
such as to transcend human reason and connect the individual with the
Whole. The subject might then attain the gift of prophecy, or better, be
enlightened with a nearly divine sense of the universal mystery and of the
infinite.
In less exalted beings we may find a more or less earthly wisdom, a
direct, non-rational insight into reality or, in a still humbler way, into
practical problems. Whatever the field the stars allot to the native for his
activity, he will hold a natural sway over others and direct them at will or,
according to his whims, as if he could dispose of supernatural means.
Should luck be on his side it would not be risky to forecast that he will
become the pivot of the circle-whatever its size-where he lives and works,
that he will step into the limelight in spite of his doggedest opponents and
will outshine even much worthier rivals.
Such are the conflicting features of the zodiac’s one hundred twenty
eighth degree; fieriness along with reserve; aims sublime yet secret; a
nature flashing with hope and led by the most generous impulses of self-
denial, yet constantly on its defensive, as the thorns and the flames in the
bush clearly imply.
Even a third case is possible: when the stars point to neither outspokenly
spiritual nor lustful features, and the whole pattern appears uninspiring
and mean, the subject proves a modest being of limited scope. The
degree’s fire then will enter the existence from outside. The native’s
activity might be bound to the fiery element, giving him a chance to rise
to success and even to emerge into fame (should the whole contain hints
of luck). Such might be the case of a smith working his way up to
becoming an artistically gifted craftsman, or an industrialist running a
successful foundry; also of a fireguard meeting an heroic death and rising
to short-lived fame.
The native’s talk also will sound like a show of fireworks. The positive side
of this influx is its utter distinction and refinement. The native is keenly
aware of his own worth, has self-respect and commands respect from
others; has sincerity, grandeur and elegance at the same time.
Overdone and disfigured, all these virtues might present themselves in the
shape of defects or even vices. We shall then meet a vain haughtiness, as
contemptible as full of contempt, an antisocial and destructive character,
apt to burst out into fits of rage. There will be a vain self-ostentation, a
misplaced fastidiousness, a splash of dazzling extravagance, a splurge of
rank pageantry devoid of any inner foundation. In other words, a lot of
money will go up in smoke; the permanent will be sacrificed to the
transitory, the useful to the pleasant, and substance to appearance.
Ananke! In a previous life the native has taken someone’s life in cold
blood, but not for selfish purposes. Therefore he is either an instrument of
fate or its victim. Whether good or bad, such a man is destined to destroy,
not to create.
He knows neither privileges nor distinctions; all are equal in his eyes; and
he cannot bear the big shots. If he is good (which is not excluded even
side by side with the ruthless will power we credit him with) he will extend
his kindness and hospitality even to the undeserving. If he is bad, nothing
will limit his capacity for evil; no-one will deserve pity in his eyes, no
power on earth will be able to ward off his murderous hand.
So far the extreme cases. The average man born under this influence will
inherit only its destructive bent and will not be able to build anything on
earth. Death’s wing will be ever at his side, ready to carry off his dear
ones, his irreplaceable cooperators, or himself. His best-engineered plans
will stay fruitless, his earthly work remain unachieved. Others might reap
what he sows down here. He can sow only for eternity.
Life under this lucky star will be sheltered against storms and earthquakes
and will glide along thriftily and smoothly. Wealth accruing to the native
from inheritance or dowry, barring indications to the contrary, will give
him a measure of independence, saving him at the same time the trouble
of striving after money, as either the native personally or the native’s
marriage partner, or both, will be born rich unless, as I have said before,
the stars point to the contrary.
Even if not possessed of any relevant wealth, the marriage partner
certainly will bring the most welcome gifts, above all, the gift of making
the other partner happy, but may well be possessed of both.
A sound, straight, innerly felt moral code; a sensible and fair behavior; an
instinctive reserve; an easy and gentle firmness of character; a natural
balance of feelings—these are the virtues completing the picture.
Outward success ought not to fail; even fame might be attained if the
pattern as a whole is favorable, though the native’s name is not likely to
survive him. Should other aspects point to renown, this ought to dim after
the subject’s death. Whatever the native’s merits, even if very high, his
renown will be greater than reasonably expected among his
contemporaries, and less than his due among his posterity.
Whatever his luck, the subject never feels happy and is therefore in a
state of constant dissatisfaction.
Symbol: A waterfall, on its bank a deserted mill. A rainbow rises from the
spray.
This influence tends to promote an intensely spiritual and artistic life and
to damp the native’s practical and businesslike faculties. There is no lack
of intelligence, but a marked absence of executive skill, so that the
native’s abstract ingenuity does not prevent his feeling helpless and shilly-
shallying when confronted with the small problems of everyday life. As a
result, in the outward sphere uncontrolled impulses and noble urges
prevail upon organized activity. The subject does not either feel it in
himself or bring his influence to bear on others in any given direction.
When they cannot praise a girl for either her looks or her wits, they say of
her in France, as a piece of mischievous cold comfort, that she is “so fond
of her mother anyway.” But this can be said in all earnestness of the
native, who is really attached to his parents. If these have bequeathed
him any estate, it will dwindle away sooner or later, as the heir is nearly
always an inefficient, often idle, idealist, lost to material reality in his
worship of the sublime and his love of the beautiful.
Inborn power and superiority over others; whether bodily or moral or else,
other pointers in the horoscope must decide. The native is conscious of his
own worth, whatever it might be. In well-developed beings this degree will
nurture lofty aspirations and inner pride; in the corner ones It will lead to
vain ambitions and display. Something special will single out the subject
anyhow, be it for good or evil, through bright mental gifts or spiritual
prominence, through money or even brute force; in what manner and how
far will depend, as mentioned above, on the other threads in the
astrological pattern. But whoever is born under this sign is very likely to
become a ruler in some sense and to have the makings for it as well; he is
likely to couple his inborn power with kindness and human warmth, and to
win many friends. This can even go so far as to entangle all mental
activities in social life, in which case the native is in for a more or less
wide popularity as the soul of dancing patties and the organizer of
merrymaking.
To all this he adds the utmost frugality, thanks to which he might bear the
distress his unripeness is more than likely to bring upon him.
Potentially a man of many sports, endowed with a lopsided but bright and
sometimes outstanding intelligence; he is conspicuous for the utmost
development of some of his gifts and the utter infancy of other sides of his
being, which exposes him to the risk of wasting his mental power on
childish trifles.
There will be a tendency to a large body size; great head, broad hands,
tall stature, etc.
Symbol: A dromedary.
An extremely outstanding personality. The native will cut out a place for
himself in all he does, supported by a fierce, altogether indomitable
nature, an inexhaustible energy, an exceptional resistance to exertion, a
toughness, a sturdiness and a steadfastness ready to stand any test. On
the reverse side of the coin appear petty formality, headstrongness, bad
manners, a wild roughness and sometimes even ferocity.
Lucky and endowed with an inventive turn of mind, he will reap abroad
the success to which his long toils and his often gigantic works entitle him.
Material danger might, however, lie in wait for him, either on his journeys
or on his undertakings and might stand in his way to wealth and renown.
In a word, all the makings of success; which, however, will keep him long
waiting. For quite a time every effort will stay fruitless, every undertaking
will seem doomed to failure, no sizable result will be apparent. He will
have to start all over again.
Unwavering steadfastness is the catchword here; try and try again. Luck
is likely to await the native far away from home. A diplomatic career, a
commercial or industrial agency abroad, or other such activities might suit
him. Destiny seems anyhow to be bound to paper, as to documents or
other writings, drawings or engravings.
The native is a ruler born, but his sway over others has nothing
challenging, high-handed or overbearing; it is but the expression of a
surging inner strength, based on a perfect harmony between power and
action, on a deep knowledge of human nature and life’s laws. There is a
highly developed power of mental concentration and insight into others’
characters, from which the native draws a clairvoyance and a foresight
that might seem supernatural. An uncommon intelligence and an
outstanding memory complete the excellence of such a mind. In the field
of human relations, a very kindly and hospitable touch, an utter sincerity
coupled with the strictest discretion, a distinguished handling of people,
full of worldly wisdom and yet above any diplomatic double-dealing, will
earn the native widespread popularity and will win him loyal friends.
Should he stand-nay, desire-all of this out of his love for Jesus Christ,
should he give himself over wholly to the service of suffering mankind and
bear any disgrace in order to allay the most horrible social evils, should
his astrological pattern, side by side with his primitive naivety, ascribe him
an heroic character and a superhuman thoroughness, he then would rise
to such a height as St. John of the Cross or Jacopone da Todi, as the case
may be. Then the crowds would end by paying, however late, their tribute
of honor and worship to the one in whose face they had spat.
In any case, this degree implies danger from swiftly progressing illnesses
and from fire. The holy man might die while tending the plague-stricken;
the fool might die of his own imprudence.
This is the great war leaders’ degree, although it does make not only the
warriors but the authors of doctrines as well; the trailblazers of new
thoughts and sciences, the legendary founders of traditions. The native
never will deny or despise the past but, on the contrary, will draw
enlightenment for the future from its study.
The secret of the native’s ascendancy, enabling him to get many followers
and to steer them along as he likes, is to be sought in his mind’s
superiority, which is based not so much on its power as on its unique
type. This original and many-sided intellect, often capable of more than
one work at a time, is coupled with a stunning psychical insight, a deep
knowledge of human characters, an inborn aptitude for treating each
person differently and for conquering everyone’s heart. He is, moreover,
possessed of alertness and penetration, a powerful and well-trained
memory, and a subtle diplomatic sense.
Although this is a war leader’s degree, the native will appreciate greatly
the benefits of peace and culture. Possibly many of those Renaissance
condottieri were born under this sign, who opened their way to leadership
with the force of arms to become from then on the protectors of the
painters, poets and artists of their age and who held in their courts
scientific and literary academies.
Symbol: A scene from Sienkiewicz Quo Vadis; gigantic Ursus, the slave,
chops wood in his royal mistress’ yard.
Apart from whatever other astrological factors there may be, this degree
tends to produce the typical figure of the good giant, so dear to late
romanticism. A modest, utterly unambitious, wild and childishly artless,
friendly, clumsily devoted being, he loves the rough toils allotted to him
since his birth and displays the greatest painstakingness even in the
longest and hardest labors. He is very fond of the country and especially
of the woods, as he feels at home only in primitive surroundings.
His honest and faithful nature might make him dear to beings more
developed than himself. His roughness does not exclude either a
rudimental kind of musing about religious matters or a deep effort to
grasp and follow a higher or less primitive moral code than the jungle law;
if the pattern as a whole points to a very clever, cultivated being, this
feature may be interpreted as portending conversion to another religious
faith.
According to the seer Charubel, the native must move only southwest of
his or her place of birth and trade in only white things or white animals.
To him goes the responsibility for such details.
Should the other threads in the pattern correct the negative sides of this
degree, the native’s work would yield splendid results. This is, however,
unlikely to happen, as his otherwise gifted, enterprising nature is
hampered by his lack of stability and his aversion to steady effort. His
taste is refined but lustful, his disposition sensitive but an easy prey to
passions and craving for pleasures. The native is in for hard struggles and
not with the brightest of perspectives, as both his possessions and his
trade skirt disaster through intemperance.
The native is awfully fond of the sea and might sometimes be fond of the
sport of fishing. Unlucky aspects might induce death either through
drowning or stifling.
Luck is likely to reward the native’s firmness and practical skill with well-
deserved success, welfare and even renown.
As the seer Charubel has it, the native’s lucky direction ought to be north
of his birthplace, which piece of advice I am repeating here on his trust.
Symbol: Thrusting at it with his pruning bill, hitting it with a stick and
pelting it with stones, a boy plucks the berries of a wild bush jutting off a
crag.
This degree, like the former one, makes the native hard working and
efficient; but in all the rest the two degrees differ greatly as this one
plunges the native headlong into rash action aiming at immediate results,
whereas the former one induces a level-headed, constant, peaceful and
self-effacing effort.
Moreover, we are confronted here with a first-rate polemic mind, which
may at times drift into quarrelsome recklessness and change the subject
into a downright wrangle. It is also to be remarked that the native’s
industriousness is directed mainly toward works which, useful or even
indispensable as they may be, result in a measure of destruction.
Therefore, he is likely to reap more notoriety than affection, and will in
extreme cases run the risk of bodily attack and violent death.
Nor is the blow sure to be driven by an enemy. The rebounding stone may
hit the thrower; after the seer Charubel, he has to beware of things falling
by accident. The seer goes so far as to discourage work or residence at
the foot of high buildings. To quote him again, and on his own
responsibility, ‘the native ought to go south of his birthplace.
Should the horoscope lack any indication of useful work besides enjoyable
pastimes, the native’s gifts for efficiency and thoroughness would find no
expression and would waste away in idle chatter and futile social events.
Those who look at human and personal ambition as a desirable gift would
be disappointed by its conspicuous absence here, as the subject’s only
ambition lies in furthering human cooperation, in promoting or supporting
collective work and spreading harmony around himself. Therefore, in the
absence of any marks of financial luck, this idealist might bring about his
own ruin.
The seer Charubel discourages travel; according to him the native’s luck
might be bound to what the Earth’s bosom yields, be it mineral ore or
archaeological remains. As above, I leave to him the responsibility for
these statements.
As to the influence of this degree on the native’s mind, see the foregoing
one.
As to the course of life, the following difference is to be remarked: there
friendship and social intercourse took up the subject’s activity entirely,
here family life is the pivot. The native may have to marry more than
once, hut great pains might have to be endured through the partner’s
divorce or death; happiness in marriage, general luck and a quiet old age
spent in pleasant recollection of good work done are to be expected.
About the native’s mind, one-peculiar feature stands out-a gift for
mathematics, which often will stay unheeded, unexploited, unknown to its
very owner who, although not lacking firmness and enterprise, might drift
toward less congenial activities, which are apt to yield less satisfactory
results. How much store may be set by this minor feature of the one
hundred forty-ninth degree, other factors in the pattern will decide.
I think that slaves like Aesop, Epictetus, perhaps even like Livy
Andronicus, Phaedrus, etc., were born under this sign. This is another of
those degrees where only a highly developed nature can save the native
from being crushed under the weight of an influence overstepping our
human boundaries. This Leo’s last degree can make a superman of
anyone whose stars should elsewhere supply the necessary requirements.
Yet, whether a superman or a human wretch, he always will fit in with the
self-styled definition of Christ’s representative on Earth: servus
servonsm—the servants’ servant. “As above, so below”; the lowest epithet
is the one of the highest human dignity. That those who have ears may
understand.
In less lucky charts this influence will easily drift astray into cruel
selfishness and double-dealing, which are natural tendencies in a libertine,
as in Maupassant’s Belami.
The native will tend to bodily fullness and will need plenty of sleep.
The essential features of this degree remind one of Libra: a fondness for
justice and indignation at any breach of it. The likeness stops here. The
native is an active and productive being. A deep researcher and
experimenter, a writer (possibly of scientific things) and perhaps a
philosopher, he upholds his activity with a keen insight and an inborn cool
courage. A hopeful character but not too lucky in other fields, he will be
successful in his scientific pursuits and professional undertakings, enjoying
the fruit there of and closing his accounts in the black.
Symbol: A steamroller.
This same force, instead of preparing and perfecting usefully the work of
others, can stay fruitless and can sponge upon its environment; or, even
worse, instead of leveling and paving the way for the execution of the
work planned, he can be employed to destroy and raze everything
aimlessly to the ground. The rest of the horoscope will show the right
angle.
On the contrary, where the stars point to fondness for the fruitless,
artificial life usually led by the smartest set of society, a rush for pleasure
will swallow up wealth laboriously built up by the ancestors. Plenty of well-
meaning and helpful friends will be powerless to save the native from
bankruptcy; once collapsed, neither his taste nor his artistic gifts will be of
any avail. A third case is possible: an aggressive, destructive, brutal and
despotically leveling nature-in a word, a downright Vandalic or Hunnish
character.
The native will be by temperament ever ready to act at any time or any
age; young or old, tired or fresh, he always will rally round as soon as the
trumpet of honor or duty calls.
However, his whole life might flow away without any call from that quarter
making itself heard or any occasion presenting itself. The native being the
very embodiment of discipline, he will not be able to create an occasion.
An excellent executor and a gentleman every inch of his being, his lack of
initiative and ambition can be offset only by his rigidly observed daily
routine and his faithfulness to friends. An uneventful life will leave him as
poor as a church mouse, but as long as he breathes and whenever his
help is called for, he will plunge into action again, spot the burning point
of the fight with an unfailing eye and wrest victory for himself or his party.
The native is attractive, smart, good looking; he has a gift for experiment
and invention, an exuberant and merry vitality, a perpetually young spirit.
The danger attendant upon such bright gifts is inherent in them; life has
been too lavish with its presents and too sweet for the native, who will
therefore be tempted very strongly to pursue pleasure instead of glory
and will too often tarry along his mortal path to pick the flowers it is
strewn with instead of making for the final goal. Money, love affairs, royal
invitations and popularity in fashionable drawing rooms will come his way
effortlessly and in plenty. In the end he will find himself old and empty-
handed and will lose heart, unable to bear bitterness after tasting the
sweetness of life.
Provided the subject can resist temptation and be as serious and steady in
his work as he is merry and carefree in his parties and revels, provided he
can stem his tendency to luxury and waste, and can join courage with
brightness and firmness with affability, he will be able to build something
durable and to leave a name behind himself.
If not a lawyer, the native might become a judge or a notary. Anyhow, his
excessive modesty will be a drag chain on his way to renown.
This degree will teach the native to love and contemplate nature’s
beauties, to cherish trees, often to like mountain climbing. Farming and
tending cattle (which .may be taken to mean pasture of souls) also will
attract him.
On account of woman (or better, of one woman) he will get into trouble.
Marriage is certainly not made for him, especially as the outward activity
that fits him best is traveling. It might be said that love of travel and
thirst for exploration are perhaps the mainsprings likely to push the native
to action. The fruit of his literary leisure as well risk to stay unachieved.
Apart from this, fortune is not too lenient with him.
None of us calls his vices by name. The miser will be “thrifty”; the
spendthrift “generous”; the coward will boast of his “caution,” the
daredevil his “courage.” Such lies do not fool anyone. But where the
border lies between weakness and leniency is such a problem as to give
wise people a headache. Where is the limit between welcome strictness
and inhuman hard-heartedness?
He will understand nature much better than man and will be apt to
meditate about the loftiest mysteries of the universe, neglecting to sound
the abysm of human passions. Strange, freakish phenomena of the
abnormal or the supernatural will engross him but he will never be better
than hopelessly amateurish at human psychology.
Other features will be a liking for smart dressing and for taking walks or,
better, the need of hiking.
This degree promises success, honors and riches. The native will know
how to command and, even better, how to secure obedience, as one
joining kindness with imperiousness. His mighty will power has a way of
sizing up situations and adapting itself to them without yielding an inch.
His character is strong rather than despotic, steady rather than stubborn,
and he has a large heart. Work goes on smoothly and swiftly without
showing signs of wear and tear, and never stays unachieved.
11-12 Virgo
His true force lies in his penetrating mind. Should other factors curb his
erotic excesses, he would force his way forward through sheer intelligence
and would end by making his own name famous. A dark, perhaps swarthy,
complexion. Red is his favorite color.
Much as human wickedness might rage against the native, it will have no
power against his balanced and unruffled spirit. “For if God be with us,
who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).
Bearing his poverty with a swing and a smile, taking the hardest ordeals
in his stride, he breathes an atmosphere of utmost serenity and, even if
not with full awareness, confides for everything in Divine Providence. He is
possessed of the magic secret of nonresistance and can easily tune with
his surroundings. His family might thwart him, wicked parents expose
him, envious rivals run him down and the world ignore him. But the
measure of his joy, and not only in a spiritual sense, will be as full as that
of his opponents’ unhappiness.
His birth might be noble, certainly his nature will be, but no burden of
tradition will hamper him; he will be rich at least in imagination, but will
do as well without any inheritance. He might love fine arts, protect them
and even cultivate them. He is likely to be fond of gardening and to
worship flowers.
The occult will at any rate attract him, if not lead him to some degree of
realization. Among occult sciences magic will be the most congenial to
him. A real initiation may come his way, should other aspects not prevent
this.
The native totally lacks imagination and,’ for all his honesty and good-
heartedness, cannot harbor any ideals. This is not due to any cynicism but
to an inborn inability to visualize what has never been met or
experienced, making the native loath to look or believe beyond the range
of his bodily senses.
His sexual life is not normal; excess rather than aberrations are to be
feared. The glut of vigor is hindered queerly by a dull stagnation, and by
an absolute lack of the inquisitiveness and fantasy which are the main
incentives to the third capital vice.
This influence tends to make a helpful, modest officer, mild toward his
subordinates, gallant with ladies, always beaming and kind to everyone;
his only failing being timidity which, if not offset by other aspects, may
even go so far as to ruin his career, though not so far as to make him
cowardly.
On the whole and for any chosen career, luck will favor him and will
accompany the often great undertakings the native might conceive and
carry out.
This is a degree of commerce in all senses of the word. The native is born
to live in society, is a sociable being (what Aristotle \called zoon politikon)
who will thrive in association and die if left in isolation.
His natural gifts are a way with people, a social sense and adaptability,
enabling him to act constantly and successfully as a connecting link for
people who, but for him, never would enter association. He is, so to
speak, the mortar and plaster of the business firms and social circles to
which he belongs. He will draw large profits from his social connections
and will be asked to all kinds of entertainments and parties. His favorite
game is hunting.
Bad aspects might disfigure those features and lead the native toward
shady business and shameless dealings with the dregs of society.
An idle fellow who, fondles his ideas and knows very well how to have
others work hard to carry them out. If he could have his own way, he
would employ crews of slaves ready at his beck and call. He is not
unwilling to work himself, but only when it cannot be dispensed with.
Work for work’s sake is nonsense to him, Any activity by himself or others
must, according to him, be foreordained to future welfare. Once his own
comfort is assured, there will be room for the comfort of others, if both
can co-exist; but once that aim is reached, there is no reason to take
further trouble. There is, in one word, the estate holder’s mentality.
Ambition is furthered steadily but not in such a way as to disturb one’s
comfort., ranking high among which are the delights of a good table.
A great stroke of luck might hasten the day the native’s fortune is
established. in a way after his own heart. From then on, barring pointers
to the contrary, he lives on his income, journeying for his pleasure or for
health (which leaves much to be desired, and he hates moving on his own
legs), or tarrying in learned leisure, musing idly, leading the household
punctiliously and closely watching the kitchen. A peaceful old age, if the
stars do not point otherwise, will close his career.
The rest of the chart is not to be lost sight of. There might be unforeseen
trouble lurking somewhere or unexpected blows of a hurricane sweeping
everything away and dashing to pieces the carefully planned prosperity,
leaving the native dispossessed and dazed.
After all, he is a skeptic, and harbors no ideals beyond, and above his
empiric self. Should the storm overthrow his well prearranged plans, his
self-indulgence will prevent him from beginning all over again, and he
may collapse together with his castle of cards never to rise again, even
losing his mental balance in his distress.
Nevertheless, the native’s knowledge is wide, his technical skill high, his
mind deep.
In any case he will love nature and perhaps become a passionate hunter
and, as all sportsmen, point his gun at the living beings he is so fond of.
Symbol: A large, showily dressed man, his hands full of tinkling coins;
golden in his right, silver in his left hand.
The native will be born or will become rich. As do all rich people, he will
stick to his money, hug it and greatly fear to lose it. Money will be the
only standard of his behavior, the common denominator to which he will
reduce all problems of his existence. He will be a schemer even in the
paltriest trifles of everyday life. Relying on his scent for bargains, he will
be ever ready for sale to the highest bidder, with utter disrespect for
ideals, friendships or extra-juridical promises. It is not to be ruled out that
he may have to suffer losses, even heavy ones if portended by other
factors in his horoscope, but never owing to lack of financial skill, this
being, on the contrary, his strongest point.
A sensuous and strong character, she is brutally sincere with herself and
others. She knows what she is aiming at and states it with a self-
possession bordering on impudence. Yet in spite of all this the native’s
silly vanity plays her into the bands of anyone who knows how to flatter
her.
Most of what I said about 24 degree Aries applies to this degree as well.
By itself this influence will not supply the energy needed to prevail on
such mentality and reform it; hence the need of escape. Disregarding the
other astrological factors, it can be said safely that the native’s success
depends on real journey and migration. Any evasion into daydreaming will
result in failure, since thirst for new experiences is the only real thing life
can offer but may lead the native dangerously astray. Passion for the sea
is a natural consequence.
Symbol: The scene of “Loneliness” which Richard Wagner has taken to the
stage and musically describes with a leitmotif known as “the theme of
loneliness” (Tristram, Act 3); on the ramparts of a castle rising on the
ocean shore the exile lies alone, nailed to his sickbed by a deadly wound;
not far away, on a lofty rock, a shepherd sits surrounded by his hock and,
scanning in vain the desolate skyline, blows from his flute an infinitely
melancholic tune.
Should the native be able to sublimate into lyric or musical effusion the
plaintive dejection drawing him aside from his fellow being and shutting
him up in himself, and should he find an outlet to his desperate mood in
melody or verse, he may become a successful, a famous, and-as an
ironical luck would have it-even a popular artist.
But he will not be rich. The contrivance of life does not leave him any time
for moneymaking, and something binds his hands when it comes to
shifting from a contemplative to an active life. Optional or forced exile
awaits him, perhaps even jail.
Steadfast and stubborn even at the risk of his own undoing, endowed
sometimes with real inspiration but nearly always devoid of true
intelligence, predisposed to sedentary life, materially or mortally short-
sighted if not shady, the native will not be loved by his children and may
die as lonely as a dog.
24-25 Virgo
Victory is likelier than happiness. Public rather than private luck will crown
the native. There may be a taste for art, perhaps on the macabre side.
A profound mind able to foreshadow ages to come but not to lay concrete
plans for the morrow. Very remote events seem to be within its ken, yet
no light helps it to see nearer things on which it may stumble at any step.
Any arbitrage or game of hazard is a sum trap for the native, who will, on
the other hand succeed with certainty in all undertakings ruled by national
logic and method, but not by accident, blind fortune, or the imponderable
of existence.
As to his private life he will be happier in ripe age than in youth and will
close his days surrounded by his children’s obedient affection and
unanimous solidarity. Physical sight might be weakened by hypermetropy
or precocious long-sightedness.
The intelligence is above normal and bent on fruitful and industrious work.
There is reserve but generosity. Many people (children or more distant
relatives) will live on the native’s income. There will be many friends and
beneficiaries around him. The subject’s powerful activity may extend its
wholesome influence to all mankind. On the other hand, he may feel
bound to his work as a convict to his chains. The whole of the pattern
must not be lost sight of. The sprockets of such a mighty machine may
even fail to catch.
A great insight, a quiet, smooth sway over oneself and others a deep
religious sense of life and work. The native’s foresight will border on
prophecy. In all he undertakes he will be led by great sudden rushes of
light, like a poet’s flashes or a seer’s visions. Driven by an unshakable
faith in his future and by perfect self-control, the native’s smooth ease will
not hinder his liveliness. He will act with lightning-like swiftness but
without hurry. He may, therefore, seem heady but will never prove
untimely. His liveliness may make his manner blunt but never rough and,
even less, coarse. His sensuousness, however powerful, will not interfere
with his professional work, which will go on smoothly and successfully in
spite of a certain taste for exterior ceremony and formalism.
Sincerity and love of truth as implied by this degree can belong only to an
irresponsible being or to a great sage. While talking, the native will tell
anyone the truth and will consider no price too high when it comes to
discovering it. The price may even be mental sanity.
Should the whole of the pattern show balance and self-control, this bold
explorer then would have access to the mysteries of true spiritual science,
or of the so-called official sciences. His intelligence is sharp, his character
melancholy but smooth, his habits secretive and lonely. The need to avoid
mental overstrain must be borne in mind.
On the contrary, other factors point to a less sound whole, wounds in the
head, cerebral hemorrhages followed by palsy, manic depressive folly,
deafness, dumbness or neurasthenia are to be feared. Unenviable or
dangerous strains like extravagance, light-mindedness and irresponsible
absent-mindedness may show up in the character. These are certainly
extreme cases, which had however to be prospected, as caution is never
too great when health is at stake. Should the chart portend death due to
judicial sentence, the guillotine is to be feared.
Symbol: A man brandishing a sword in his right hand and a dagger in his
left.
This first decree of Libra clearly admits, among the features peculiar to
this sign, cult of justice and love of art, along with other strains jarring
with Libra’s general influence.
1-2 deg Libra
A forerunner of things to come, the native will strive to conform to his own
principles-whether scientific, religious or artistic-but his uncompromising
purposefulness may stray into self-centeredness and misanthropy, giving
way to a repulsive hardness of heart.
Of the whole horoscope alone we must ask if the native’s knowledge will
conquer human ignorance to be conquered by it, whether his toils will
yield riches and welfare or suffering and famine; in a word, if glory or
banishment from home or, even worse, the workhouse or the lunatic
asylum or a jail will fall to his share.
Apart from this, the one hundred eighty-fourth degree may bestow
different gifts leading to seemingly divergent trades, whose common
feature, however, proves on closer scrutiny to be somehow connected
with skiff in cutting. Therefore, according to the other stars in the nativity,
we may expect skill in the arts of wood carving and engraving, in a tailor’s
or a tiller’s trade, or in a successful surgeon’s career.
On the whole, two features stand out: the native’s uncommon taste —
even if he does not blossom into an artist—and the fact that as a farmer
he would do better business for others than for himself.
The native is an essentially fiery and martial being, born to fly and bound
to reach his goal with one great heave of his wings. Should he set foot on
the ground, (his huge wings sweep the ground and hinder him in walking.
—Baudelaire, Les ileurs du mal: L ‘Albatros.)
This degree exacts a hard, patient, endless labor, possibly a serf’s work,
certainly a very tiring one. A just but belated reward will follow.
Old traditions and antique objects are cherished or - as the other stars
may bear out-the new is opposed on principle and there is an inordinate
fondness for worthless old junk.
Need I say that love is the keystone of this degree? However, as some
obvious features may escape many a reader, I shall dwell on some
apparently idle details.
The symbol does not of necessity imply that the male native is a
superhuman being or the female native a repentant sinner. On the
contrary, it does imply a divalent influence acting on the plane of love.
Some patterns may even bear out the figure of the prudish Pharisee who
will not only refuse to forgive the sinner but will curse the flesh and go so
far as to ruthlessly and indiscriminately persecute love in all its aspects,
even the legitimate ones. Here too, though negatively, love is the
revolving point.
Symbol: An old warrior in full battle harness raising his sword in token of
victory.
The noblest manly traits. The native worships freedom and is ready to
forsake life for this ideal. He couples the keenest courage with an utter
sincerity, a ready and precise wit, and a sharp, nearly unerring critical
sense. But all these virtues open as many pitfalls.
Love of freedom may straggle into waywardness, daring into reckless
aggressiveness, frankness into libel; the critical sense may be warped into
the peevish pettifogginess of one keen on taking everyone to task and
reveling in endless faultfinding. Even his loftiest motives may lead the
native to a blind ambition that may prove his undoing.
Symbol: A marabou.
All this is more or less probable. But only the nativity as a whole will be
able to tell us whether we are faced with a great philanthropist so
engrossed in his study of the most hideous social evils as to forget his own
outward aspect altogether or, with a public man who, even if honest,
meddles with the loathsome ordure politics mostly consists of; or with a
swineherd, a humble sweeper, or an even humbler scavenger in a
backward hamlet.
Freedom and life itself are open to risk of a kind varying according to the
subject’s social status and special activity. When harmful influences are
together at play, he can turn out to be nothing but a dirty pig, a regular,
authentic, unadulterated swine.
The horoscope studied in its entirety will have to reveal the calling or point
to the mission to be carried out; however, the native himself is sure to be
outside the fold of common mankind. In his being there is something
lordly or beastly, super- or sub-human, led by divine inspiration or
atavistically instinctive and cruel; the twain are unlikely to co-exist in one
soul, as this degree portends a divalent, self-contradictory, jumpy and
jerky nature.
This degree favors only women and harms the other half of mankind, as
the only gifts it vouchsafes are good looks, smartness, and formal
courtesy. But it nearly always gives a frivolous character, vain to a
degree, fond of purposeless leisure, and the native is likely to do a good
deal of looking around, and of looking at herself, without achieving either
prudence or a moral consciousness. No useful lesson will be drawn from
past mistakes.
And these are not her worst defects: the real drawbacks of this degree are
effeminacy and impotence. This latter may affect the mind or the virility;
and may be partial, rendering thought, or the semen, sterile, or the
impotence may be total (producing idiocy ); and may strike the male
native or the female native’s husband. Where other astrological
components offset this and stress a powerful manliness, a productive
mind, a practical sense and the like, this influence may turn to impairing
one’s health and warping the sexual urge, without excluding the power,
thus leading to narcissism or narcissism in its widest sense.
Symbol: A man and a woman spitefully turning their backs to each other.
This influence will benefit only the mind or, rather, one of its faculties—
presence of mind. Affective life is a failure; marriage will almost certainly
result in divorce, friendships in disappointment; there will be
disagreement with everyone and, as a consequence, misanthropy.
Symbol: A fox and an ancient theatre mask (from one of Aesop’s fables)
All this assuming the best. In other cases there will be self-conceit coupled
with the most abject toadying, a mixture of priggishness and pandering,
bluff and treacherousness; should the worst come to the worst, there
might even be obsession or devilish possession. (Anyhow, mediumship will
be a constant danger to be duly considered; even the native’s mere
presence at a necromantic invocation—the so-called spiritualist sittings
where children masquerading as grownups play with fire—may be a peril
in itself).
Such rhetorical trash may obviously sublime into dramatic skill or stage
ability. But the star, whatever its sex, is unlikely to be very intelligent.
For him the main problems are those touching his inner man; once his
appetite is sated, everything is all right. For the rest, his weakness of
character borders on total lack of will power and delivers him into the
hands of others.
A lowly sensualist, the native may get into trouble on account of love
affairs or sentimental entanglements; he may even be the victim of magic
ensnarement (what the French term envoutement and the Javanese mean
by guna guna) or other similar filth.
Inborn ambitions are faraway travels and the army, though the native
strikes one as more an organizer or a technician than a fighter. Anyhow,
he would have no luck fighting for his country on the front line as, barring
strong components of luck, any enemy grenade falling into a trench would
surely have his name on it. Electrical engineering would be a calling for
him.
Should other stars grant the native an original and independent mind-
which this degree falls just short of bestowing— the virtues mentioned
above would come into full light and allow self-assertion, success, and
even renown.
A musical soul, gifted for tuning together human voices more than
instrument voices, and more for solo singing than polyphony.
In either case, critical sense and dialectic fluency are first rate but may
degenerate into a childish desire to demolish and contradict, into an idle
quarrelsomeness that looks for trouble and may land in it for no reason.
Even if other aspects and a suitable upbringing instill the most
gentlemanly and the po1itest wittiness into the native, he would still be
very unlikely to use it opportunely
The native’s drawback is an ingenuous belief in abstract logic and Goddess
Reason. He cannot find It in himself to admit the existence of such a thing
as a mentality.
As the mind, so the native’s body will stay nimble, lithe and youthful till
late years. The snag about this is that youth’s passions will lose little of
their fire and will be hard to check. Such a glut of physical energy will
need a life in the open to find its proper outlet. There is a great fondness
for horses and riding. However, this breezing irreverent Tili Eulenspiegel
often will run the risk of losing his freedom, through either reprehensible
light-mindedness, the uncalled for heroics of an improvised revolutionary,
or simply the crime of having slighted the undisputed sovereignty of
philistine tradition. All that is likely but not certain. Widely different
reasons may lead the little bird into a gilt cage.
Symbol: A lordly villa in the open country, its inner walls decorated with
encaustic tiles or trimmed with engravings.
An outstandingly good influence for home life, which will be happy and
quiet in spite of the great number of friends the native’s hospitable nature
will have within his house’s walls. His open and fair character will win the
hearts of both friends and strangers, and the favor of stars, which will
grant him happiness and wealth.
At variance with his native surroundings, he will strive to reach higher and
higher, coolly assessing and lining up the means necessary to work his
way up. But he will go too far in his efforts, leaving nothing to chance or
to the flash of the moment to decide, thus exposing himself to
disappointments and hardships.
If favorably aspected elsewhere, he will overcome all his enemies and end
by holding undisputed sway. Even if he is not going to rank among the
rulers of Earth, he is likely to reach the top-flight of any given career, and
will make his authority felt, much, to his dependents’ dismay.
This nature shows some undeniably positive features and bright gifts, or
even magic abilities. Yet it lacks some practical faculties needed to make
one’s way in everyday life. The native will have to work in someone else’s
employ, which he can do without debasing himself, as service does not
mean servility to him; he can keep his self-respect even in the humblest
positions, and is apt to resent the slightest encroachment upon his free
will.
Unfortunately the native is likely to stick to absurd fads and to tread ways
leading him nowhere. The greater his stubbornness, the more cruel the
disappointments fate has in store for him. He will not make any headway
but will see all his plans crumble and his alleged friends turn their backs
on him.
The native may be advised to use more firmness and a measure of self-
denial, to be less vain, to stop lulling himself into a deceiving sense of
safety, and to step boldly into real life. Thought and will create, whereas
yearning and daydreaming only destroy.
The native is a tireless researcher who will inquisitively pry into nature,
snatch her secrets, analyze them and methodically pigeonhole the results.
A restless urge to change subject and shift his grounds of observation will
make him loath to stay put, so that even when penned within four walls
he will try to change his room from time to time. He may be fond of
journeying to unexplored countries and will certainly worship knowledge.
The branches most congenial to him seem to be chemistry and medicine
(this one perhaps in a spiritual sense). Occultism is not to be ruled out in
branches akin to the ones quoted: viz., alchemy, the mother of chemistry,
and pastoral medicine.
A tall, sturdy and handsome physique, great sexual vigor and inordinate
lustfulness. A fierce character, more likely to prevail upon others than
upon himself. A sharp wit, inclined to good natured irony or to bitter
sarcasm, as the case may be. Self-confidence in even too large a
measure. The native’s high ambitions will shut him off from the common
fold and inspire him with a pride verging on haughtiness. He will be fond
of hunting.
The native is exposed to ambushes and foul play at the hands of his
opponents and may collapse when he least expects it.
Whatever kind of gambling he may try his hand at, bad luck is certain to
crush him.
A pride that can be sublimated into the noblest sense of human dignity or
debased into vanity rather than haughtiness, into a tendency to strut and
show off, either materially or morally.
On the other hand, kindness, equability, poise, tidiness, love of justice and
harmony are inborn virtues. Yet these in their turn may induce a too
yielding, dull, helpless and fickle disposition. The native thus may fall easy
prey to flattery, or to his own desire to appear obliging. A contrasting
strain of jerky impulsiveness will seem not to fit in with the whole.
A two-edged fortune; great chances of victory in the struggle for life, and
danger of losing all of one’s property.
A strong but limited intelligence, as the native’s mind can do only one
thing at a time and does it with all its might. There is a cool courage and
sudden spells of fury on a background of impassiveness. However, if
deliberately planned, this wrath will explode blindly. Lack of moral and
physical suppleness; the native is unwieldy and nearly horny skinned;
rugged, not springy; slowwitted and slowly aroused.
The drabness of such a narrow horizon will be borne with ease and taken
for granted by this unhinged mind, prone to find any wider ambitions
abnormal.
Although the native has moral principles, he will put up with anything for
the sake of peace. An intellectual mind, gifted for literature and art, and
likely to dodge his enemies’ underhanded plots.
Should the nativity bear out fatalism rather than ambition, the subject
would be a crack shirker, a likeable sluggard, a pleasant daydreamer,
whose life will risk flowing on uneventful and dull without an ideal and
with the sole aim of shunning effort. Most of the intellectual flotsam of the
modern middle class is under this influence; their only ambition is some
obscure government job, where they can dig in and bend their backs,
ready to stick anything provided It wards off hunger.
On the contrary, where other forces at work supply the native with a bare
minimum of initiative and self-respect —which this degree in itself neither
gives nor denies —there could be real courage and firm principles behind
the outward softness of manners. Such virtues must be developed by
manly training, enabling the native to weather any storm and to take life
like a man. Then the native’s twist toward cunning can be turned into
wisdom, and culture and good manners will confer great charm. The rest
of the horoscope must show what the native is driving at.
Symbol: Deluge’s end: the Ark is stranded on top of Mt. Ararat, and the
raven flies over the expanse of water. (Gen. 8:1 —7)
This degree may see any occult disciple through some stage of the Great
Work (the raven), but is ominous to anyone else insofar as it hinders the
establishment of a correct relation between the human being and its
surroundings.
It is as if the sprockets of the native’s wheels could not engage with the
links of the outside world. If he is not endowed with the kind of faith that
moves mountains, he risks growing fearful and reckless, humoring his own
weaknesses without understanding the weaknesses of others. Shy of
human society, he will feel safer among dangers; absolute faith or blind
recklessness? Danger of accidental death or murder? To the stars the
answer to those questions, although it will never be stressed enough: they
predispose, never compel.
Symbol: Othello.
Symbol: An elephant.
A detailed description, taking bodily features into account, will point to tall
and stolid frame, a large nose and small, lively eyes; an individually
marked character, a strong soul, gifted with sharp and deep judgment.
The native has not only a mentally great head, much humanity and plenty
of power, but is cautious, reserved, unprejudiced, either evenly
melancholic or fearlessly confident in the future. Though he is normally
easy and self-controlled, his wrath will know no bounds if he is roused. His
memory is exceptionally retentive of both good and evil; his grudges can
hardly be smoothed over.
Symbol: A zither.
Art, harmony and merriness are the hallmarks of this degree. Merriness: a
sparkling fullness of life, a freedom from worry, a lively cheerfulness
utterly exempt from coarseness; happiness or, at any rate, contentedness
and luck. Harmony: an agreement of the soul with the innermost self and
the surrounding world, creative balance, inner peace, lord-like generosity
toward one’s neighbors, faithfulness to the ideal of the chosen career, apt
to reward the native with renown or, at least, success. Art: lyrical art in its
widest sense; poetry, theatre, particularly music; or, at least, refined
taste and feelings.
Should the whole of the pattern bear the mark of spiritual pursuits, the
native would be a follower of the mystic school leading to union through
love, and to the attainment of one’s highest aim through an harmonious
correspondence with things rather than through a harsh self-conquest. On
the other hand, where the stars purport a feeble character, or an inner
split, idle propensities and a trifling disposition, this degree but heightens
such vices and does not bear any, of its above-mentioned fruits.
Symbol: A man maimed in his lower limbs, stands in the middle of a plain,
while a storm rages overhead.
A real worker, the native will easily put up with hardships and think little
of himself. In spite of a great sense of duty, there is an inner split, which
could result in gossipy duplicity or even pervert modesty into dissembling
servility. Though patient enough, the native will carry out his task bluntly
rather than further it actively and steadily; he does not put enough zest
into his work. An appropriate training will have to supply him with the
necessary share of stead-fastness, or he will risk stopping in the middle of
any undertaking.
If the will power can be educated at all, the native’s limitation will not
exclude success, as his painstaking care of details will be appreciated. Ups
and downs can be expected in his social status, but if he is liable to fall, he
is as well apt to rise again.
Symbol: A treasure.
The symbol conveys its meaning clearly enough, but it may help to
remark that this influence can work on different planes. It may refer to
the native’s precious gifts as well as to something outward that destiny
has in store for him as a surprise; in this latter sense the symbol may be
taken literally or metaphorically. None of the foregoing interpretation bars
other ones; as usual, things are to be looked at within the frame of the
whole astrological picture.
Now for the details: Inner treasure may be taken to mean wealth of
feelings, ideas or other forces of the mind. The element prevailing in the
nativity will show the right sense if the houses and the aspects also are
taken into account. A material treasure may be collected as a result of
commercial dealings; or, whatever the success, the native’s lot may be to
deal in jewels or rare objects. Otherwise he may be born to dig out
mineral ore (gold, silver, etc.), archaeological remains, or to perform
fruitful research journeys. In some cases the native may be singled out by
destiny to be, spiritually or technically, the leader of an entire people.
Apart from all this, we may add that the native is a tireless worker and
that he is liable to show some childish features even in adult age; at the
same time there is something royal about him, and his fortune holds
something unexpected —and illogical —in store for him. Whether these
are all to be pleasant surprises must be left to the pointers of luck in the
chart to decide.
This much can be said with assurance: the native has some karmic
mysteries in his path, before which the average mind will feel thoroughly
puzzled.
The keynote of this degree consists in its exposing childhood to the risk of
an irregular development of mind and character. The whole of the
horoscope will have to show whether men or events are to blame,
whether the reasons for this are to be sought inside the native in an
inordinately developed ego, or in the outside world. The possible
consequences of this influence are twofold: either an unmanly sagging
and flagging of the mind, or an exaggerated reaction resulting in a
superiority complex.
Whatever the truth, the native will stay long unripe and childish in his
youth after having had an insufficiently youthful childhood. Restless,
hypercritical, irreverent and ingenuous at the same time, he may,
however, blossom into a useful member of society; when he reaches a
higher position than his limited mind would purport, and thus shows a
positive reaction to his early discouragement, he may even develop
materially humanitarian tendencies. I say materially. In the spiritual field,
ungenerosity will be the rule.
In the foreground, a son’s love and solidarity with one’s native clan. On
the reverse side of the shield, lack of measure.
When other aspects point to a liking for the career of arms, this degree
will bestow the gift of strategy. Should the stars point to agriculture
instead, the native would be a great organizer and manager of farms.
Many would be the native’s likeable sides if only he had some character,
but he is very unlikely to have any should his Ascendant (or point of
equidistance, or Sun) happen to fall on this degree. Anyhow, his best
features would be openness, directness, innocence—all virtues which, to
be realized in practice, would need such firmness, energy and self-denial
as are certainly conspicuous for their absence here.
In spite of all, people will like his genial, hearty open comradeship, his
loving kindness toward his friends. Though he may be harmed by other
people’s (if not his own) indiscretion, he is no fool and can gauge human
characteristics in their whole, if not through a minute test of their details.
On the other hand, a much coarser being will not be an atheist but a
fetishist, a bigoted clericalist or the like. He will be utterly devoid of any
stoical spirit and apt to let his fatalism or determinism—no longer a purely
sentimental or speculative leaning—weigh heavily on his practical life and
work. In this case the native’s main feature will be a slothful passivity,
which may border on idleness or cowardice. Should a fillip from outside or
an inner impulse rouse the sluggard to some work, he will fling himself
blindly into it, but his labor will risk being wasted, and his body being
crippled in the process.
One result is common to both types of native: he will not be able to taste
the joy or the pleasures of life.
An ancient Christian legend tells how, when Lucifer was flung down from
Heaven, a jewel fell from his crown. From this jewel a cup was carved in
which, on the day of our Lord’s passion, Joseph of Arimathea gathered the
blood flowing from crucified Christ’s five wounds. This chalice, luciferic by
origin, divine by destination, is named Grail. Its wardens are knights
enlisted into a military order having its headquarters in a mysterious and
impervious place by the name of Monsalvat. Hence the knights set out to
bring mankind the medicines it needs, to defend the oppressed, and to
redress downtrodden rights. But not all the knights have stayed faithful;
evil forces try to win over as many of them as possible, and the ranks of
deserters form the army of Monsalvat’s bitterest foes.
This legend’s secret meaning does not concern us here, but only such
hints as are necessary to explain the symbol, whose essence ought to be
clear by now, consisting in a spirit of Christian charity and mercy served
by an enlightened mind and a chivalrous and enthusiastic heart. A knight
errant may not tell a lie; formidable as the foes may be, a righteous one
cannot be conquered in an ordeal, down a merciful one cannot but be
human and kind, a Christian hero cannot but be lovable.
Whatever the moral height of the native, foreign is the country where he
is called to act, his outward appearance is nimble and ‘attractive, his
wedding princely. Should other components allow, he would belong either
to a secret sect or to the militant Church.
16-17 deg Scorpio
Symbol: A deer.
This degree would greatly favor a military career if it had not a great
drawback— the total absence of even the slightest amount of civil
courage. To be more accurate, that slightest amount would have been no
moral virtue but merely a show of some political value, so that the
absence of even that much results not only in cowardice but in imbecility
as well. The native is weak towards himself, his opponents, life; though a
line must be drawn between private and professional life. Outwardly the
greatest gent1eman, he is punctual at work, scrupulously honest and
accurate, always smart and proud, and will enjoy the sympathy and
esteem of all. At home lie is ruthlessly selfish and torn by the craving for
new sensations and lusts. Rather than reckless and dishonest in love, he
is unprejudiced and shameless and will be naturally enough worshipped by
representatives of the opposite sex.
Therefore, unless favored with a great amount of luck from other stars,
his life will be a failure or, at least, a great disappointment as he always
will consider discretion the better part of valor and will end his days in
misery.
A strict sense of justice, a liking for aimless leisure, unlucky love affairs
thwarted by jealousy and mistrust (whether the native or the other
partner is jealous, the whole of the horoscope must tell), an absolute lack
of autonomy, a life weighed down by an excess of sloth. The native seems
to lay little store by his own word, as he thinks little of entering an
engagement and even less of subsequently breaking his pledge.
As watchful and wary as anybody, the native is far from being a daredevil
and seldom has real courage but looks as if he were always angry at
everything and everybody, or nearly so, and his threats frighten
numberless people. A fighter with words, he will display a bugbear’s grim-
faced bluster but seldom attack, and never in front; if assailed, he will
fight back with unequalled doggedness, and his bites will leave their mark.
Success is within the native’s reach on account of his courage and his
spiritual height, supported by a rugged yet pliant body, and in glaring
contrast to his unbridled lustfulness. Few people will be such an easy prey
of women, gambling and wine; on the other hand, few can stand
hardships so well as he can. But his balance could drift into inner split, his
force in to quarrelsomeness or love of word fights, or into aggressiveness
altogether.
Travels, probably east, will play a remarkable role, and during his
wanderings the native is likely to make discoveries or important
researches. A potentially unlimited intelligence lit by spiritual hope.
A savage or primitive nature longing for freedom and champing at the bit
of restraint. A great but undisciplined moral force, a courage ready to
stand any test. A probably wild or downright ferocious character, knowing
no inhibitions. At the same time, simplicity and naiveness; a love of
childhood is apt to drive the native so far as to make him take part
seriously in children’s games and to look a child among children. Fondness
of horse racing.
Life will be hard on him, so that after a succession of ups and downs he
will find himself in a blind alley from which he will not manage easily to
escape.
Nor is this the only defect. There is too much thrift, which can stiffen into
close-fistedness, too much reserve, which may lead the native to shun
society. The tragedy of life is so deeply felt that a pall of constant gloom is
likely to set over the native. Every family mourning will leave lasting
traces.
For all her thrift, the native will stay poor, or nearly so, but will manage to
have a house of her own, will be esteemed for her virtues and is not
unlikely to leave behind not only an honored but a famous memory,
provided that the rest of her pattern bears it out.
An honest and human nature, whose loathing of the pick of society and of
the smart military set will turn his feelings into sympathy and love for the
needy and the destitute. He will courageously go out of his way to succor
this undeserving flotsam of society who has been disinherited and left in
the lurch by the highbrows. But he will get the usual reward of
benefactors: “ingratitude more strong than a traitor’s arm” will overpower
him.
Others are unlikely to acknowledge they are under the spell of such a
prestige which, in some cases, may become very great indeed.
A faith ready to stand any test is the keynote of this degree, where the
word faith may be taken to mean anything within the limits of the
meaning conveyed by such an extensive word. In a good sense, this will
be faithfulness to a religious ideal, apt to create perfect human relations.
Were it bad faith, this would turn into lasting grudges and ill-will, or Mito
treacherousness in trade; viz., cheating; and it may bring about an
accomplice’s solidarity and a tendency to stick together in crime.
Certain virtues, however, are sure to be there: scrupulousness, reserve,
earnestness and firmness in purpose, consequence in one’s views.
Fondness for learning, aptitude for arts, and scientific gifts. A creative and
original mind that can reach the height of genius, if the other stars bear
this out.
A sedentary life on work days, sport in the open on holidays; fondness for
hunting, success in shooting at stool pigeons.
On the whole, good luck, even a very good one, if it did not keep the
native waiting too long.
The native will exert the greatest influence on his neighbors through his
mastery of words, which will enable him to hold a nearly irresistible and
hypnotic sway over others with the greatest parsimony of sentences.
Should other aspects concur, he would have an uncanny knack of shifting
any argument onto ground most favorable to himself, and of cunningly
turning the debate in such a way as to let the opponents dig their own
graves with statements jeopardizing their own case. This would make him
highly dangerous if he were, as he is likely to be, a double-tongued
trickster.
Unusually enough, to his gift of gab and to his moral and bodily
suppleness, the native will join a true warlike spirit and other gifts that
may stand him in good stead both on the battlefield and in a barracks; he
will be able to alternate the use of a stirring word with the display of a
combativeness that sometimes can reach heroism, but will oftener make
him harshly and aggressively unpleasant to anyone not under the power
of his magic spell.
With these gifts, the military and political careers are obviously open.
In spite of all, the gifts mentioned above are capable of sublimation; one
should not forget that this degree stands under the symbol of a snake,
whose meaning is well known to the initiates.
This degree confers an unruly imagination that may run away with the
native at times, but it will give him a keen and ready insight as well. He
will not avoid trouble, but his scent will be so delicate and his wits so
piercing as to enable him to take off at a glance the most entangled
situations and to tell accurately truth from falsehood, right from wrong.
People may like, love, even adore, the native, but the concourse of other
astrological factors will be needed for this.
The native’s warlike and impulsive nature will stay hidden till drawn out
and revealed by circumstances apt to produce an outburst of rightful
wrath ambitious fury. Till such time, the native will look like a good-
natured man, in deep-felt affections but full of reserve; not submissive but
unassuming and self-contained; kind, correct in business, sensitive and
watchful, with a slight of tameness but ready to defend himself.
On the contrary, when the bugle has blown, there he will go, leaping out
of his den to do or die, a hero or a villain, violent and ruthless, a real
daredevil.
A lonely and confined life, danger of widowhood. The soul’s silence and
solitude are broken only by a muffled song reaching no further than two
steps away. (Pascoli, imbrurare, Dusk).
A pun may express this rather well: when the native does not work in the
service of others, his work is of no service, of no use: all his efforts for his
own sake will stay fruitless. Strangely enough, this seems to suit his
boundless vanity, which is nearly ridiculous for a man; he will think of
himself only as in a show-window, and all the mental work he reserves for
his own personal benefit will only aim to make himself admired. He will
not dream of his own independence, or at least he will not think seriously.
The native will tend to have all his eggs in one basket, and may risk
everything on one throw when his very life is at stake. If he wins, success
or even glory is his; in case of defeat there is no further chance, as he has
burned his bridges. Usually Fortune will smile upon such confidence in her
favors, though this will not always be the case.
The nativity taken as a whole must point out whether we are confronted
with a great man’s deliberately planned gamble, or with a game operator’s
or betting addict’s random shot; we hardly need say that the latter is
more frequent. Therefore, unless well aspected elsewhere, the native
cannot rely exclusively on the blind Goddess’ smile to balance his
accounts, and he will risk failure at the slightest wink of ominous stars. He
then will have to put up with the lowest jobs and bear the humblest
fatigues. Yet even in this case his buoyant cheerfulness will stay
untarnished and the faith in his own star unshaken; this loser’s merriness
may even spread around him like wildfire, and he will take a hand-to-
mouth existence in his stride, waiting for Fortune’s wheel to give another
half turn.
8-9 deg Sagittarius
Fire, either in a real sense or in the figurative ones; the fiery element
takes a hand here.
Burning pains: life’s battle will be ablaze with searing fire which, however,
will cast its glow on the native’s personality. Even if destined to an early
death, he will have been prominent and may have chosen such a career
as to bring him to the limelight. The career itself, whether literary, political
or forensic, will have to be determined by the chart as a whole.
Destiny singles out the native to defeat his competitors and to come off
with flying colors in his career. He has the makings of success; a way with
people, a manifold and assimilating mind, handiness and skill in general.
Should these peaceful gifts not be enough, he will show his claws when
the occasion calls for it, and will appear quarrelsome and aggressive.
Whether by hook or by crook, he must reach both a renown and a position
above his mental powers, which can be a genius’, but never will be
original. Whether by birthright or by professional earnings, welfare and
riches must either accompany him or meet him on his way.
This degree will favor a military and a political career. It confers all the
virtues of a noble and fearless heart and all the vices of a sly, dissembling
and unscrupulous mind. The native is glib enough to defend the noblest
cause, resorting to the underhand tricks employed to bolster up a forged
and exploded cause. Strong favorable aspects would strike off the
craftiness, whereas concurrence of evil features may taint the nobility of
the cause.
The native will win many friends and make many enemies; and his life,
after seeing him through many perils, may have a sudden end.
A strong lover, the native may lavish his affections on his lawful wife, or
have many, erotic ties at the same time, the only clearly emerging feature
being sacrifice of other—however eager—desires to the flesh.
He will be kind and affable with his neighbors. Yet in talking he may
display a self-contradiction apt to annoy his interlocutors.
The excess of lust may involve him in all kinds of trouble and may wear
precociously his bodily vigor, thereby increasing his congenital slackness.
But we must not lose sight of the result. Ill-gotten is ill-fated. The wrists
of the worshipper of the golden calf risk becoming too well acquainted
with shackles or straight jackets. Unless powerful stars come to his help
elsewhere, moral decay, bodily contagion or the breakdown of his reason
will take the poor wretch to jail, the isolation ward or the lunatic asylum.
Still in his prime the native may see all his ambitions satisfied, but he will
face disappointment in his riper age if he cannot turn into a steady flow
the energy that pushed him forward in leaps and bounds during his youth;
one never ought to rely on one’s flying start to take him all the way up to
his aim.
Symbol: A narrow, dark and deserted blind alley, littered with broken
toys.
An evil influence. The native’s utter lack of practical skill will prevent him
not only from leading anything to completion but even from getting down
efficiently to any task. His plans will be made of thin air, his action will
bear no other fruit but mistakes and mishaps, misery and ruin.
On the reverse side of the shield we find that the native’s merriness
betrays a childish strain, that his carefree and frolicsome craving for
amusement sometimes runs away with him and stops him from doing any
real good. His too-marked personality may, in spite of his generosity,
isolate him or cut him off altogether from human society.
The native is sensitive to cold and needs warm garments. His life will be
long but not prosperous—therefore too long. Some reckless acts may land
him in endless trouble. The shakiness of his position will sour his ripe age
and bring about an old age of hardships and toil. Abandoned by his
neighbors, the native will find no refuge other than prayer. May God. lend
an ear to his wishes.
Symbol: In full daylight Diogenes, clad in rags, goes around with a lighted
lantern. In the background is the cask where he lives.
The native is raving mad and driven to further excesses and absurdities by
each of his impulses. He not only loves a rustic and sparing life but goes
out of his way on an endless search for self-imposed hardships. He will not
work, though he subjects himself to an unceasing and aimless toil. He is
wayward rather than original; his planning is but castle-building. He
cannot be denied a certain cranky and crotchety genius, but he is
thoroughly off balance. A scatterbrained madcap and a dizzy cloud-
dweller, he never will be able to get on in this world. He will only rouse a
sensation. The failure of his hard efforts may even bring about real
madness.
Fondness for boating, a taste for art; a nimble mind and a lazy
disposition; a subtle but crooked intelligence, a passionate and touchy
character, endless worrying.
At any rate, something will have to be thrown overboard in order for him
to escape, and the bums will leave permanent scars.
This degree will grant gifts referring to three different branches of life:
society, art, and medicine. The word society must be taken in its widest
sense. The native will be as sociable, cordial and merry as anyone else; he
seems bound to win many friends, to enter lucky business associations
with many of his acquaintances and to have a crowd of admirers. He takes
passionately to social problems and joins political propaganda and party
struggle with the zeal distinctive of scholars and the fieriness of a
partisan, sometimes with a sectarian’s stubborn cantankerousness.
For art he has good taste, perhaps artistic and decorative gifts; certainly a
great love of beauty. Nor are his gifts for medicine negligible.
This native is surely a tireless and manifold person. The whole of the
horoscope will point to the activity he must choose, though the three do
not exclude each other, as the medical scholar may write treatises going
down to posterity as masterpieces of art, the artist may choose subjects
with a sociological background, whereas the sociologist may have to delve
deeply into problems of sanitation and health.
The whole of the theme may indicate also whether there will be genius or
amateurish shallowness, a manifold mastermind or a brilliant dabbling,
thoughtless zeal, or fruitful activity.
This two hundred sixty-first degree clearly attunes the contrasting forces
of man’s upper and lower being; it gives self-mastery—a balance between
spirit ad matter. Any balance may be dynamic or static; whether the
former or the latter is to be realized here is up to the whole horoscope to
tell.
On the contrary, should other aspects in his chart show a resigned, dull,
unpractical mind, the influence of this twenty-first degree of Sagittarius
then would turn to harm insofar as it enhances the native’s irresoluteness
and renders him suspicious of all and everyone.
At the bottom of all this there is an unavowed thirst for public applause
and a. total lack of the constructive gifts leading to recognition; the native
must therefore fully exploit the only weapon still at his disposal—applause
of his critical thrusts against other people’s buildings. He will tirelessly
throw stones at others, polemicize, heckle and run down their works. Still,
when milder stars do not interfere, he will be in for quarrels, brawls,
squabbles, lawsuits for libel, well-deserved boxes on the ears and duels,
which will be his daily task. Death on the dueling ground cannot be ruled
out.
This degree carries the hideous mark of jealousy and excessive suspicion.
Jealousy means mistrust of everyone and everything, hidden watching,
stealthily rummaging the beloved one’s papers, spying and lying in
ambush to follow the eyes from afar, taking other people into one’s
confidence and ending in being doublecrossed by them, torturing one’s
beloved and especially oneself.
Heart ailments are not unlikely. If not the mind, the nerves are certainly
unhinged.
Symbol: Suicide.
A gloomy spirit obsessed by the idea of death. The symbolic image may
come true literally or metaphorically, or both together. Anyway, life will be
short and dreary, death sudden and perhaps violent; but the native
himself is responsible for—if not the author of—his own mishaps. His
ambitions are wrong, preposterous or fruitless. He cannot win friends and
establish business connections. His life will be marked by a quick
succession of accidents.
The symbol also may mean departure without return, like emigration,
relinquishment of an entire world, etc., or more simply, faraway travels
and even gain through foreign ‘trade but, in this latter case, income will
be desultory and uncertain.
Hard ordeals are ahead. If the native knew moderation and could
rhythmically alternate work and rest, pleasure and duty, success would be
within reach.
The body will be light and nimble, the movements supple and precise;
there will be skill in handling weapons and a sense of rhythm. The native
is one of those few people who can use their hands and can above all
imitate their neighbors and counterfeit them strikingly. Should the rest of
the pattern support this, there would be great scenic gifts—whether tragic
or comic, will have to be decided by other features.
A bad nativity may pervert art into mummery and the harmless jokes into
dirty tricks. The nimble person, mastering his own body with matchless
skill, may turn into a clown or be warped into a quacksalver. Anyhow, it
ought to be borne in mind that a soul nobler and deeper than expected
hides behind those outward striking and likable features. Few will notice it.
26-27 deg Sagittarius
Should other stars support this, the native would be a man whose mind
and activities stand out for all to admire, but he would be morally poor
unless other aspects greatly improve this point. The native does not know
what he is driving at, has no moral backbone and cannot stand upright
under destiny’s blows; he is, in a word, characterless, and on top of this
seems to have his hands bound for one reason or another.
His speech will be persuasive, his nature sociable, likable, attractive, even
charming; he will be irresistible in love. If you add to all this a
mastermind, genius, the peak of greatness and glory is sure to be
reached, even through stumbles, wanderings and waverings. But the
position thus reached will not be stable and safe, as the envious will
refuse to lay down their arms—nay, will never feel secure till they have
thrown into disgrace or ruined the native who will, therefore, have to be
cautious in things political.
Sudden death may sever the thread of career and work at their climax.
The very embodiment of patience; slow but stubborn, tireless, the native
will get on thanks to his steadfastness. A silent, close, somewhat bent and
precociously aging being, he has something tragic about himself as
tragical will be the ordeals and even the slights he will bear without
batting an eye.
I said he seems, not he is, as a sudden death, perhaps a violent one, may
snap his career. Will this mean his own death, or death of a protector or
an inspirer? The answer is to be sought elsewhere in the nativity.
A peculiar feature is his fondness for a soft and snug bed with sheets of
fine linen.
The native is a misfit in his times. He may discover some of the most
jealously guarded secrets of nature and be a forerunner of times to come;
and may as well bring again to the light things long forgotten and buried,
thus reviving the past. Whether the former or the latter, he has a mission
to fulfill and possesses the force of character and the sharpness of mind
life demands of him. A naturalist or a mining engineer, a pioneer, an
archaeologist or whatever he is, he is born to discover, to innovate, and to
be misunderstood and bitterly fought. He will have to suffer but will be
able to overrule the intrusive advice of the zealous. Should the other
aspects not rule out a measure of luck, he may well end by carrying the
day.
The native’s essential trait is a close tie to another human being, possibly
neither a lawful nor an unlawful marriage partner; the whole of the
pattern will have to specify which kind of bond this is. All suppositions are
admitted; the subject may have a twin brother or sister (the extreme case
being Siamese twins) and that may have a decisive bearing on his or her
existence; he may have a kind of spiritual brother or brotherly twin ray, as
the legend has it of Orestes and Pylades. In a thief’s pattern, this
influence will tend to establish a criminal partnership to be dissolved only
by the gallows; in a degenerate’s pattern there may be a homosexual tie
of durable character.
In all of these cases the answers to such questions as whether there is
any reciprocal affection, which of the two brothers is the other’s succuba,
are to be sought elsewhere.
He never will be at his wits’ end; he will be rich in initiative, will guess the
right angle of ‘each problem, will have a penetrating mind and possibly a
gift for architecture. In his thirst for sublime things he harbors a deep
respect for everything sacred and ancient. Yet his intellectual powers risk
fruitlessness in spite of the most strenuous efforts, as these will be
inconsequent and jerky.
Whoever knows the secret meaning of the word snake will be able to
adduce from the symbol itself the occult possibilities of this influence.
Even outside the sphere of the supernatural, the native is heir to an
exceptional force and ascendancy. He is brimming over with vitality, will
valiantly withstand attacks of both enemies and illnesses, and will show an
outstanding faculty of recoupment after repelling the assaults of fellow
beings or of bad health. He is wary, wise, possessed of extensive and
deep knowledge, of a subtle mind, of an immediate intuition of truth and
of the ability to strike successfully with lightning-like timeliness.
A strong will power, focused by the native with the help of all his
resources, exactly on the aim to reach, saves him a useless waste of
energy in the pursuit of glory. The sign does not tell us, however, exactly
where this aim will be set; the native has a fine sense of beauty which
may work in any of the following ways:
His love may be bent toward sensuous beauty, or may lead his gaze to
rest placidly on nature as grown and tended by man’s care, so as to bear
his dominical imprint, as in cultivated parks, grounds, villas, and
fountains; the subject may be a worshipper of art for art’s sake, or may
toy pointlessly with the shallowest vanity of outward elegance. His will
power may be focused toward good as well as toward evil. In extreme
cases, we shall have on one side the great initiate, or on the other the
arch-criminal, the organizer of black masses and orgies reserved to a very
select circle of refined addicts; or we may have the gambler or the rake.
The native’s lack of reserve will give fuel to other people’s slander and,
coupled with his sometimes reckless hospitality, will lead to material theft
and plagiarism of ideas. The native will look upon all this with unheeding
lightheadedness or at least excessive leniency. He is conscious of his
productive— nay, creative—power and does not pay too much attention to
the earth’s material wealth or moral misery. He is independent or, at any
rate, self-sufficient by nature and tends to tolerate his neighbors’ failings
and to neglect their vices in order to focus his whole attention on his own
inner world and to enjoy the work of his own mind.
Shyness does not mean cowardice; a lamb’s disposition does not bar
courage and, on the other hand, a wolf’s nature clearly bears it out. On
the other hand, there is an extraordinary power of psychic concentration.
Therefore, unless unfavorably aspected elsewhere, success ought not to
fail the native, who could even become a pastor of peoples if Jupiter and
the Sun are well posited.
A labyrinth: will the native be its maker or its victim? Or, like Daedalus,
both at the same time? A Sphinx: is the riddle in the native’s self, or
waylaying him at a bend of the road he is to travel? And will the riddle be
of a material, intellectual or spiritual nature? Will there be political, or
feminine, intrigue?
The Sphinx would rather not be asked questions. She is to ask them
herself. As usual, the whole of the nativity will have to help formulate the
answer.
If woman, the native would likely be a crack at the game of holding more
than one suitor at a time by his heartstrings, twisting them around her
little finger, and exasperating the jealousy, the male vanity and the
curiosity of each in turn. She is whimsical but sparkling with wit; scheming
but frolicsome. Many a man whom his fellows respect or fear will fall into
her snares. Some, driven crazy with jealousy, may risk their lives at this
game, some may lose their reason or their freedom.
Should the native be a man, and he be involved in political intrigue, there
is sure to be a woman somewhere. The native may fly high or land in jail,
may be exiled or die a tragic death. It is the end that counts.
But the man is not by all means to be an Oedipus, nor is the woman,
whether a winner or a loser, to be a sphinx. The riddle may belong to the
domain of science, and the sphinx watch the secrets of the physical world
or the threshold of the world beyond. I shall not tire of repeating that only
the chart in its entirety can supply the key, as the parts fit into a whole;
but the whole gives them a background and a meaning.
But rather seek ye the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be
added unto you. —Luke 12:31
In a spiritual nativity this degree could carry a very high reward for the
native’s sacrifices. These will be superhuman, and the prize not of this
world. Down here this prize will take the same shape as it took in
Solomon’s case: wisdom, as this degree by itself will not grant any earthly
happiness.
The virtues here are a great humility before God and a dignified reserve
before the world. The native ought to face and bear his karma with quiet
courage, without trying to dodge it, as he would only risk losing his
reputation.
9-10 deg Capricorn
Symbol: A king wearing the crown and seated on the throne receives an
envelope from a messenger or an ambassador.
On one side, all the moral or immoral traits required are at hand, such as
secrecy, reserve, cautiousness, world wisdom, cunning, diplomacy and, if
needed, double-dealing. On the other hand, there will be the favor of
high-placed, or even topflight people, whose importance and the brilliance
of the native’s career will be determined by the rest of the chart. This
applies to the measure in which those virtues or vices will come to light as
well.
A knack of getting work done with a lively and nimble rhythm, without a
hint of routine, but with a harmonious sense of time and space; a brisk
activity, a springy energy closely adhering to things.
The risks the native is up against range from voluntary exile, meant to foil
justice, till flight and attempted evasion and even till jail. The Vatican’s
thunderbolt —excommunication —may be in the offing as well. Another
peril, threatening even a straightforward commoner (especially if stressed
by other stars) would be losing one’s inheritance at the hands of a
usurper. The native may even fail to know his own birthright.
The fullest measure of success will crown such an ambition provided the
native knows where to stop.
Symbol: A Gardner tidies and trims a splendid park which has lain
abandoned for years; uprooting the weeds, pruning the withered or
blighted twigs, felling decayed trees and the like.
Here we are confronted with a first-rate critic and polemicist, a
revolutionary innovator. He is not of necessity to be a politician or a
journalist; whatever field of action he chooses, the native will fight a
successful battle and end by disposing of the mentality his circle had
inherited from the previous generation as a useless burden.
In this light he will be helped by an inborn irony which will at times take
up a tinge of humor, at times acquire the edge of cruel sarcasm against
the opponents of the idea he stands for. A past master in the art of
unmasking other people’s hypocrisy, he will ruthlessly lay bare the most
hidden recesses of human mentality, but will spare the populace’s
superstition rather than the smart set’s prejudices. His crude realism does
not in the least exclude sincere devotion to an ideal. He may even be an
artist; landscape painting exerts a special fascination over him.
Such a fighter will seldom become universally liked, but he will be admired
and he certainly will be feared. The most congenial professions are
medicine (neurology or psychiatry) and ethnology.
A degree whose nature is hard to define, as it can bring either good or bad
luck, both peace and strife. I should be tempted to say that everything
depends on the native. This much can be said anyhow: there is a lot the
subject can do, but it will be no easy task,
A man worthy of the name will not stoop to the tactics of a despised
enemy; the foes here are overbearing and sly and draw the line at no
weapon.
Personally the native may well count his blessings; he can make himself
very much liked; if he only wants, his inborn nobility and sweetness of
manners may win him many sincere friends; his intelligence is open to
truth, and the seeds of hope and faith in God lie deep in his soul. The
native must surrender himself entirely into His hands to get the necessary
protection and justice. Should other components bar faith, let him then
rely on the measure of protection that the powers that be go out of their
way to grant him. He must not let human wickedness intimidate him, but
he must keep his eyes wide open and be watchful and firm. Let him be
above provocation and not stoop to squabble with those unworthy of him.
The symbol is divalent. It may imply that the rider control the horse
without the help of material means, acting, as it were, magically through
sheer will power; and it may mean as well that this soul is carried off by a
subhuman energy over which consciousness has no power. The horse is
usually taken to mean the three lower vehicles of man, and the vehicle
par excellence is certainly the physical body, its unbridledness being a
transparent token of unleashed lustfulness.
One may wonder how the two divergent constructions can be brought to
an agreement, but this is hardly necessary as the stirs will leave place for
only one. Moreover, one and the same person is not at all unlikely to hold
an irresistible sway over others while at the same time being ruled and led
by lust. The answer, as usual, must be sought in the whole of the chart.
At the outside, this degree would produce the Master, the man of God, the
Great Initiate, the Anointed One. In any event, there will be
independence, faraway travels, and such features as to make life appear
like a novel to others.
A very human character, showing all the higher features of its animal part.
The native’s dog-like, all-out fidelity will be put to many a severe test. He
will have a grumbling, growing, quarrelsome, nearly always harmless
spirit; at the same time, the friend of mankind’s docility and admirable
reasonableness. The temperament will bear the marks of the utmost
decision, but of steadiness as well, and the intelligence will be above the
native’s rank.
Outside the artistic field he may well’ become the herald of new scientific
doctrines or philosophical systems, which, however, must be borne out by
the rest of the horoscope.
Luck may smile upon him more as regards associations than affections. He
may be successful at the bar, in diplomacy or politics.
The other features, good as they may appear, are all negative. The native
will dare public opinion, but without deriving from this eighteenth degree
of Capricorn a sufficiently good reason to do so; viz., that independence of
thought and character which confers upon a man worthy of the name the
right and the duty to rebel against society’s idolized fallacies and
organized wrongdoing.
As to money, the fruit of his labor will be belated, even if he works hard;
whereas he seems to be in for luck in love.
This image can be taken both literally and metaphorically. In the former
sense it will point to a heavy, steady, drudging work; obviously this work
will in all likelihood be mining, digging up archaeological remains, and the
like.
The latter construction of the symbol would by no means bar the former.
At any rate, either with his brawn or with his brain, the native will have to
work hard; will be patient rather than stubborn, or vice versa, as the
other factors purport. As to his tools, he will be an extremist in either
sense, will either put up with the roughest, nerly antediluvian, equipment,
or will exact the most up-to-date outfit modem technique has evolved.
The obstacles to clear will be great, but he will face them courageously,
and luck will smile upon such strength of character and such unflinching
will.
Symbol: Two people of different sex dine alone at a luxuriously laid table.
The room is lit by a profusion of tapers. There is a sacred image on the
wall.
Recourse was had to Law as a control A King was chosen, who could steer
the course of realm, his gaze fixed on a holy go4 —Dante, Purg. 16,94-96
A bright but rash mind, an utterly jolly temper, on the main more or less
forgetful of the boundaries set by thrift, law or custom, not of those set by
manners; a hospitable, generous and winning nature, but reckless and
inordinate in love matters. Sentimental entanglements can bring trouble
or worse; lavishness, extravagance, foregone conclusions and overhasty
decisions can produce financial losses, failures, even complete breakdown
should the stars be particularly evil. Overindulgence in food and drink are
not unlikely. A leading hand, wise and firm, seems nearly indispensable.
Earthly affections may sublimate into God’s love and Christian charity;
where other factors point the same way, the native may become an
ascetic, even a saint but, too often, earthly and holy love will to-exist side
by side and will induce a typical Freudian complex of sensual mysticism.
Should the horoscope as a whole point to neuropathy, erotomania or the
like will be the result.
Charubel maintains that if the Sun is southeast of the pattern, trouble will
be limited to the former half of life. He goes on to say that the physique
will be of a sanguine temperament, which reminds me of an old distich I
heard attributed to the Salerntian school, though I cannot guarantee its
authenticity:
One ought to bear in mind that the wheel is also whimsical Goddess
Fortune’s tool.
The native reaps where others have sown. An unquestionably gentle and
demonstrative but fickle and shallow person, given over to fun and
enjoyment, and fond of frills and frolics, the native will be but an amateur
in everything; yet, barring a sudden accident, she will have luck on her
side.
Unless, as I said above, a sudden accident hits her; the position of Uranus
in the pattern has to be considered.
Fit as he is, he may take to sports and games, but the most congenial
work will be tilling the soil or running farmed country, steering clear of
those intrigues of society his straight and open character abhors. He may
be weak in front of human wickedness, but is certainly naive, often
skittish, never thoroughly polished, much as those in charge of his
breeding may have done.
This is one of the finest degrees of the whole zodiac and bestows even
physical beauty, but its highest prize lies in the inner stillness and
enlightenment it confers. The native has such a wealth of spiritual
resources as to enable him to preserve an unruffled self-assurance under
any circumstances. Even if poor and uneducated, he will draw from an
inborn, instinctive wisdom, an unerring insight into nature, its beings and
its laws; if in a position to learn, he will delve deep into the knowledge of
such laws and will be led to discoveries that will raise him into renown;
but in any case, whether famous or obscure, he will prefer inner
meditation and silence to the fuss of the teeming human masses.
Other components, in contrast with the spiritual nature of this one, may
let love of nature and animals drift along utilitarian lines and result in the
trade of a dairy farmer, a cheesemonger, or a beemaster.
Something fatal, the highest prestige, art or even power to sway over
others but not to rule himself.
The horoscope as a whole will tell what kind and what amount of luck he
will get; surely, should the native make a mistake, he cannot rectify it or
retrace his steps. On the other hand, the propelling force is an impulse, a
dash and not a constant drive, and tends to sink to naught through
friction, wear and tear, so that either the goal set to him is reached within
a certain time, or utter failure has to be faced.
Yet the real danger lies elsewhere. Should the pattern fail to show any
trace of resolution which, as stated above, the native even too badly
needs, the very favors of fortune would be wasted on him. Many an
occasion will pop up and slide away before he has found it in himself to
grasp it. His rightful place in the world may be taken by the first comer,
even by someone less intelligent and scrupulous than himself.
As the olive, when broken in the mill oozes sweet oil, so let your broken
heart bleed a song that redeems, uplifts your will —D’Annunzio
The native will be weak with himself and his sexual urges, but self-
assertive, even too much so, toward others; he will leave a marked
imprint on his own surroundings. An engaging, though selfish, lively,
prompt and precocious being, he will show a marked artistic talent since
his green years, which can thin out into good taste, or can gain volume
and ground and can blossom into creative power.
Outside the artistic and teaching field, he may gain some repute as a
speaker. As a priest, he would emerge as a preacher, and his services as
a director of conscience would be in great demand. All this is likely if other
strands in the pattern bear out a great eloquence, lead toward the sacred
orders, etc.
In a more modest nativity, artistic leanings may pave the way to humbler
activities and may confer the makings of an outstanding craftsman; on an
even lower plane, it may lead to a juggler’s sleight of hand.
I think here are all the prerequisites for a good chess player: a sharp eye,
a grinding criticism of the opponent’s moves, an agnostic and methodical
spirit.
Here is certainly a sincere thirst for freedom. The native’s defiant, brisk
and masterful character will endow him with growing efficiency as more
and more of his energies are released by his conquest of freedom. But his
karma is certain to bring him either moral or physical chains, and he
himself is likely to tend unconsciously to chain his neighbors. Therefore,
the hidden aim of this degree will be the release from bondage. One’s
bondage will in its turn warm to respect the freedom and dignity of one’s
fellow beings.
Kindness and love of justice are not wanting. The sense of justice may not
be enough, as there is tog much self-centeredness, leading the native to
look at things from a too strict personal point of view. This applies to the
mind as well, as the individual flight into new and unfenced territories is
held back by the fetters of logical reasoning.
Should the native be able to break his chains, his thought thus freed
might soar beyond the Threshold.
Symbol: St. Paul struck by the lightning flash of the Spirit on his way to
Damascus.
The native is likely to embrace religion, turning his back to the atheism or
agnosticism he formerly professed, or to convert himself from a lower to a
higher form of faith; and then it will just fit his nature to try to convert
others, to become a missionary or to preach in his own country. However,
he is certain not to get at truth gradually but by a sudden flash, and. he is
apt to get down at once to the task he feels himself entrusted with, as
resolutely and firmly as his fiery personality bids him.
The physical organ of sight is extremely sensitive and therefore
vulnerable.
The native will either be a scatterbrain or will risk bodily losing his head to
the executioner’s ax, or will face maiming, laming, or invalidity.
Anyhow, such a gift will be the exception, the rule being still dispersal of
energy. A gift for managing and ruling is, as I said, a limit; even if the
native gets his mind under control, he will use it only to sink back into
memories of his past, whereas in the present or in the future his plans will
stay just as fruitless as will his sexual power.
The early or efficient cause of these evils may be traced back to his having
been exposed, orphaned or neglected, and therefore, inadequately
brought up in childhood or in his early adolescence; hence the waste.
Warlike, rushing and forcible, outwardly splendid and innerly noble, the
native seems to have no bearings and no aim. Reckless—nay, altogether
blind—he will be destitute of any authority; his victories and his possible
popularity will be short-lived. If a winner, he will not know how to exploit
his victories and will leave his shoulders undefended for his opponents to
hit back; if a loser, he will wander about as luck would have it. In a
material sense, theft is a real danger of wounds, mutilation, or death
sentence.
Can a man born to rule find his feet in a world where even the lords do
menial work and live like slaves? Craving liberty and being proud, strong
and resolute, he has such a high feeling of self-respect that he cannot
allow others to presume to have him at their beck and call, or to exact—or
even to expect— homage or salute from him. Free from lip service as well
as from inferiority complexes, he is, however, still swayed by his inner
feelings and endeavors to stem and hide them; but the harder he tries to
confine them, the harder they bite him.
This is not the only weakness of such a strong mind; unless favorably
aspected elsewhere, he will be haughty and devoid of human sympathy;
he even may trample upon his inferiors and prove wicked and crafty at the
same time.
It may be remarked, by the way, that in ancient Egypt the scribes were
slaves and there were no misunderstandings about this; the juridical
figure of the public servant exactly corresponds to his moral function.
Attachment to one’s own interest and to the interests of one’s family and
clan; combativeness in all fields, from literary polemic to real weapons.
Fine manners and quick action.
All these features may sublime into the highest virtues —watchful and
selfless daring, love of one’s home and ancestry, human solidarity, noble
pride — and may ebb into the correspondent vices —unscrupulous and
reckless aggressiveness, a decayed gentry’s pride and prejudice, a
gangster’s solidarity with crime, conventional formalism.
There usually will be a modest career not in keeping with the size of the
native’s ideals or with the power of his constructive mind. A rough and
tumble life, full of surprises and ups and downs, is not at all unlikely. The
profession or trade may be bound with physical fire or glow with the flame
of Spirit, normally symbolized by fire. Let this be a warning in both
senses, as playing with fire is usually dangerous, and one can easily come
off with ugly scars.
It is one of the worst influences, as it can lame the body, pervert the soul,
poisoning both at the same time. Idiocy also can fall to the native’s lot.
Unless excluded by the rest of the pattern, such a influence can lead to
sexual magic; many a witch and sorceress will be born under this star.
Symbol: A head severed from its bust is held high by someone and still
goes on talking.
All these features may be marked enough, but they do not reveal the key
of his personality, lying in a formidable either psychic or bodily strength,
such as to enable him to survive catastrophes apt to shatter lesser men.
Vulgarly he would be thought to possess nine lives, as is said of cats. Just
in the nick of time, when everything seems lost and any further hope of
rescue would sound absurd, a providential intervention allows him to
survive. Usually this will come as a deserved prize for the faithfulness
mentioned above.
Will it be faith in one’s lord or in the Lord? Here the rest of the horoscope
should supply the answer. At the limit, the symbolic image recalls the
miracle of St. Denis, who, after being beheaded, rose and picked up his
head again. At the opposite limit, the native would be an executor of
Justice’s dire retribution, and would show the populace the culprit’s
severed head.
(Remember how the God of Wisdom built the first stringed instrument by
fitting two horns to a turtle shell, thus making up the resonator.)
This degree denotes skill either in art (music in particular and, more
especially, stringed instruments), or in industry, medicine or science at
large. An everyday philosophy, much fondness of work, a great handiness,
a patience apt to stand the stiffest tests, and an even excessive prudence.
Enmities but luck. When not altered by other components, the female
native, or the male native’s mate, will postpone any affection and any
ideal to the care of her person. Her physical appearance will be a matter
of taste and will appeal especially to those fond of lusty roundness, apart
from the real beauty of her complexion, hair and eyes. Her disposition will
be less appealing, being a mixture of cunning and violence, of unbridled
passion and cool scheming.
Should other factors supply those inhibitions which this degree by itself
fails to grant, the blind urges may be checked and bent, so that violence
may turn into manly resoluteness. But too much would be needed to
sublimate the cunning selfishness, the wickedness and the turbid flow of
passions which make the native into a hated, though perhaps feared and
even admired personality.
This is one of the best zodiacal degrees as it bestows a strong and merry,
active and tireless, faithful and sturdy nature, an industrious intelligence,
a constructive mind, capable of creation and execution at the same time;
a knack for trade and, usually joined to it, artistic taste. Where other
factors concur, it may bestow genius.
This degree’s most beautiful feature is the cheerful eagerness with which
the native carries out his work and gives it the finishing touches; humble
as his work may be, he plunges into it as enthusiastically as if it were a
feast. Any advice as to the most congenial profession would be wasted on
him, as he instinctively knows what he must do and does it well.
The crucial point of this degree lies in the province of social life, as the
native’s relations with his neighbors will have a decisive influence. If the
horoscope shows favorable features in the sector of trade and of the
outside world (the non-ego), the fruit of his personal initiative will increase
an hundredfold through intelligent association. On the other hand, bad
components in those aspects will hinder success, arouse redoubtable
rivalries and unfair competition, and threaten loss of the deserved profits.
In such cases, the native is apt to fall in with the typical picture of the
mad criminal, who believes that his moral duty is to kill, either to pacify
the wraith of a revengeful relative or to restore the stained honor of a
lineage. (Unfortunately, only lunatics believe that a family’s honor resides
exclusively in a woman’s reproductive organs. Such ridiculous and
revolting ideas are especially spread in the Mediterranean countries). Or
he may kill on account of other crazes rooted in his psychical foreground
and likely to invade gradually the patient’s consciousness and to obsess
him.
Neither the typical born criminal nor the passional criminal is excluded.
Nobody can deny that the former is abnormal; the latter is only
momentarily so, as long as it is enough for the flash of passion to dazzle
his mind and to guide his hand to bloodshed.
Symbol: A water source spurts forth by a high mountain top and dashes
down, filling its boulder-strewn path with hissing foam.
Among his neighbors, the native will stand out like a beacon, but his
nature is as reckless, and his position as unstable, as water; the danger of
tumbling is an ever present one. His steadfastness is greater than his
firmness, the elemental forces of the whole being are more powerful than
limpid. I do not say that there is mud, but the purest source loses its
transparence if it squirts out too violently.
As in other similar case, the danger of tumbling may even literally come
true; the rest of the pattern must throw light upon this as well as on
whether that steadfastness is not to turn into a boring persistence.
Should other strands in the pattern offset the headiness of the temper and
induce a certain order in the turmoil of ideas babbling up in his mind, the
native could turn into a real master (initiatory components would make
him into an occult master); on the other hand, baneful components may
warp his recklessness into blindness (taken literally or figuratively).
He is apt to couple the cult of the past with a keen sense of progress and
evolution, and is likely to initiate reforms and to be the trailblazer of new
ideas. Therefore, the die-hard gentry may consider him a revolutionary
and the all-out Jacobins may twit him with conservatism. If the stars do
not hinder his progress, such slander will not keep him from following a
brilliant political career, if he should wish to. As a politician he will enjoy
immense popularity and prestige, owing to his broadmindedness, his civic
sense, his humanity, and especially owing to the instinctive liking that
everyone will take to him.
Fortune conferred by this degree is really what the Romans called Fortuna
Major; little as the stars smile on him, the astrologer may foretell the
native, “...should you follow your star you cannot fail to land in glorious
harbor.” (Dante, Inf. 15,55-56).
26-28 deg Aquarius
As the body is nimble, so the mind is swift, suitable for word fights as
sharp as the sword. Military careers and the art of fencing, diplomacy and
the bar ought to be accessible in themselves, but an eye should be kept
upon the rest.
For the rest, this is one of the noblest degrees, a really royal one. It
promises the subject, whatever his origin, undisputed authority, easy
riches, and high feelings. The moral feelings are austere and inflexible in
spite of ambition and even thirst for power.
0-1 deg Pisces
In the former case the native will be an extremely sociable person and a
useful go-between, intercessor and peacemaker. He will make a faithful
and staunch friend, endowed with the gift of persuasion and of adapting
himself to any environment. Marriage ought to be extremely lucky unless
particularly unfavorable aspects bear upon marriage relations in the
horoscope; ambitions ought to be peacefully satisfied.
The most suitable professions are those connected with the law:
magistrate, banister, solicitor, coroner, attorney, notary.
This being will prove at the same time haughty and diplomatic, harsh and
steadfast, fierce and hospitable, rough and generous—nay, lavish—to the
point of squandering. A barbaric nature, coupling high spiritual gifts with a
coarse, lusty and gluttonous grain. There is a peevish self-assurance and
an unruffled self-indulgence, and at the same time such gifts as to
overcome the many enmities the native’s rough manners may have
aroused.
Luck seems to top expectations. But if success is not apt to cost too high a
price, lavishness and neglect on the other hand can cause trouble. Greed
is like a powerful whirlpool, liable, as the Umbrian proverb has it, “to
swallow a house up to its roof,” and the evils that rudeness can work are
but too well-known, as rudeness can cut people right off from human
society.
Symbol: A grave.
Should the pattern indicate moral strength and not bar luck, the native
may become a haven for the weak and the outcast, commanding at the
same time the respect of those in power. A prudent, steadfast, self-
sufficient personality, he may seem even more impenetrable and baffling
to astrological research than to the vulgar eye. If helped by outstanding
planetary aspects, this degree may give birth to a spiritual master.
On the contrary, in less lucky horoscopes this degree may produce
mediumship, membership in a Masonic lodge or any other shamefully
secretive feature. This sense of disgraceful mystery may refer either to
the supersensible or to the lower human sphere, and may warp this
degree’s reserve into hypocrisy. But its justice and intelligence never will
be blighted. This latter—something abstract in itself—may even appear
admirable in a weak or wicked native.
This influence has much in common with 30 deg Taurus (which see). It
will give masterfulness and the accessory prestige over others in more or
less refined utilitarian and earthly matters, tending toward enjoyment,
though not exclusively material; its supreme pleasure is friendship.
But, for all his good intentions, the native will bring little luck to his
devoted friends; however, unconsciously and against his own will, he will
lead them to sacrifice, which he himself will not escape, as his inordinate
and dissipated life will inflict a spell of ordeals and mishaps upon him.
The career of arms (not of the sea) seems to be the thing for him; a good
marksman, an impenetrable character, a combative or downright
aggressive person, a commanding figure, he has all the makings of a
successful soldier or airman. And his power of concentration will fit him for
different careers as well, according to the rest of the astrological data.
But little as the nativity swerves from the trodden path, here are the
greatest chances of evil or good ever accessible to human beings, both of
them in a mystical sense, with a deep religious feeling, or at least with a
formal respect for rituals and ceremonies.
Where good factors concur, the way to saintliness is open to the native, or
he can receive the highest initiation. He may become a church dignitary,
or a valiant scientist, a profound thinker or even a remarkable artist, but
always on the plane of universal ideas.
A humble, but not bad, nativity, may bestow a lower degree in the
ecclesiastical heirarchy. (as a convent’s guardian) or a low one (a lay
brother, a sexton, or the like). On the other hand, a noble but rebellious
theme will produce that amount of anticlericalism that marks many a
sincere follower of the church, or will lead the native so far as to oppose
the church on behalf of a religious, or nearly religious, ideal striving to be
more universal than Catholicism and to be worshipped more faithfully than
Islam.
The concourse of evil components will lead to black magic, the practice of
Satanism, possession or obsession, or in a humbler way, to witchcraft,
shamanism, necromancy (so-called spiritualism) practiced as a ritual, etc.
The brother or brothers have a great part in the native’s life. Luck is
ambiguous. There is a great love of water, which may grow into a positive
danger if ominous pointers concur.
He will be able to change his ways and means all of a sudden, though
staying faithful to himself; his religious principles will not prevent his
being overcome and carried away by passion now and then. Nothing will
either find him unprepared or throw him off balance and betray his
feelings. He will be called tightly a man of character. Destiny bids him
away from his country, on long journeys, and may sever his blood ties
even in his adolescence. Other items in the pattern will give this forecast
sharper outlines.
His headiness and daring may border on foolhardiness; his fierce and
defiant love of independence may strike as savage sullenness. Yet the
spontaneous flourish of his speech, his frankness bursting forth like a
force of nature, will make him liked in spite of his lack of measure. Luck is
a decisive factor, but its sense will not be determined by this decree.
Sepharial suggests a career at the bar or with the pen. Both he and
Charubel admit of priesthood. I leave them the responsibility for such
statements.
From the hub to the rim and back again. —Dante, Par. 14, 1
As he who looks back, back will have to go. —Dante, Purg. 9, 132
The problem of such an existence is how to insert oneself in the Whole, or,
in other words, to find out where one’s central point is. (Central, not
middle, point, as hasty interpreters will have it.)
The way to one’s own innermost core may prove an ordeal, taking up
one’s best years and further. At each crossroad the native may have to
stop in utter puzzlement and retrace part of his steps. Like a wheel caught
in the wrong contrivance, the native may go to pieces; or, like a sprocket
wrongly fitted in its hub, he may skid off and come to grief; or even, like a
wheel forever removed from any contrivance, he may end by becoming a
pretty but useless trinket, an ornamental dead weight for himself and
others. But once the hub is properly fitted upon its axle, the yield and the
range of the native’s activities can no longer be measured by conventional
standards; his vitality is prodigious, and the depths to which his
unfettered thought can reach are abysmal.. Thus the more dangerous is
any aberration.
Here is the raw stuff to which only other pointers in the pattern can give
shape. A nativity pointing to goodness or straightforwardness will make
the native into an ideal marriage partner, an excellent cooperator, an
exemplary citizen; one who will protect the oppressed and the poor, and
who will spread his soothing influence on the surroundings where he lives.
Yet, even in the best sense, he will have to meddle with other people’s
business and will haunt them when they would rather enjoy their privacy.
If born evil, he will take to black magic and will hurt others without after-
thoughts for the sheer joy of it; he will oppress the poor, sadistically
torture those who love him; in a word, he will be a devil incarnate.
Rational intelligence is far from clear if not downright blurred. But there is
a great power of feeling, a bright, keen, piercing insight, whose edge is as
sharp as a sword's.
Here are Seer Charubel's words: "Whosoever thou art, thou hast a mission
to accomplish and thou wilt be armed with the necessary power and
authority to execute that mission. Thou art a child of the Sun."
So far the positive side of this influence, which the nativity as a whole will
be called upon to bear out according to Charubel's favorable construction.
Yet one ought not to forget that, just a holy as that right may be, a
swword is resorted to in its service, and that revenge does not behove to
men but tot the gods. A grim, stormy, short-tempered, aggressive, even
quarelsome being, he will make many enemies without turning a hair, so
sure is he of himself and of his aim, so unlimitedly does he rely upon his
ambitions. Which may breed hateful superiority complexes or an utter
inability to retrace one's steps, whatever the size of the mistake made.
A great love of travel; both literally and metaphorically, the native will
make headway.
Attachment to one's family certainly is a virty, and this native, who is very
fond of his own, certainly has some redeemoing features. Prudence he has
galore, but his playing for safety, his inborn distinction, his fatherly love
will nt save him from strife. On the contrary, the quarrelsomeness
attendant upon his life will, unless corrected eleshwere, make him
repellent and widely unpopular. This is to be traced back to a stubborn,
unbending, inexorable and not unsuccessful strain of ambition. He very
excess of wariness will wrap his prudence into offensive suspiciousness.
Tenderly and coddingly fond of his children, wards and pupils as he may
be, he may, howevr, go so far as to be downright cruel with strangers, as
a mere trifle is enough to arouse his anger.
The native will fling himself headfirst inot daring deeds before which
others will think twice. Will those deeds be noble and heroic or will they be
ambitious and foolhardy?
The pattern as a whole must reply. What seems certain is that, unless
favorably aspected elsewhre, the drive pushing the native forward is but a
momentary onrush, no steady urge. Moreover, it ought to be kept in mind
that the native has set out alone; he cannot bank on anyone else's
support, and his impulse naturally tends to run out. Then what can be
expected?
No one is seen through to his goal by his more initial start. The native will
have to expect from other factors the steadiness this degree seems to
exclude, the prudence without which daring spells suicide, that sense of
human fellowship and cooperation which ambitious people despise, though
no lasting success can be achieved without them. Anyhow, the native will
reach an essential turning point toward the middle of his life; any wrong
move then will be liable to bring about his ruin, breakdown, brankruptcy,
or the like. The symbol may be taken literally to mean drowning.
An open, daring nature, easily led into contrast with the outside world,
and into all sorts of danger.
Duels and strife will be hard to avoid; they will endanger physical integrity
and threaten health and life itself.
On a lower plane this degree will breed public men. The subject then may
be an idealist, but his activity, not a purely worldly one, will never stumble
on problems of consequence; he will let himself be led by merely political
principles and will stick to empirical methods. In the light of such
premises, it cannot even be said that the end justifies the means, as the
end itself changes according to circumstances. Only that which proves
useful for the time being is praiseworthy.
In an unlucky horoscope, castles will be built in the air, and the inability to
have one’s dreams come true will lead to changing one’s opinions and to
remolding one’s random plans with the same casual unconcern with which
one would change his shirt. Should other such features concur, the danger
of mental unbalance would set in.
My son, the cut was good, now think of the stitching. Words of Catherine
de Medicis to her son Henry III after the murder of the Duke of Guise
Symbol: An old Frank in battle harness; his hair, kept uncut according to
the worriers’ custom, is wound into a topknot from which it fails loose on
his nape. He hurls the double axe at his foe.
Here the axe blow of fatal determination is symbolized. Either the native’s
character is firm and manly, capable of initiative, certain of his aim and
apt to snatch the right moment for action, or he is simply not up to his
destiny and, high as his aspirations may be, he will shirk or rush through,
give up before trying his luck, or waver, foam with rage or let things take
care of themselves with a swaggering nonchalance for which there is not
the slightest foundation.
Prophetic foresight is a feature, which may lead the native to try his luck
at hazardous games or ruinous arbitrage.
Symbol: David about to sling at giant Goliath the stone destined to kill
him.
The native is ready to fight for victory and, in order to reach it, is ready to
stand any amount of fighting. High as the reward may be, it is sometimes
likely to appear inadequate to the native’s heroic efforts. Driven by noble
aspirations, as well as by lust, he will resort to any kind of assault. If
attacked himself, he will drive the foe back with casual and playful self-
assurance. Ready for the gravest decisions, he will go straight to his aim,
even if this implies bloodshed. But he is likely to temper his
aggressiveness with his sense of honor and to subordinate his tricks and
makeshifts to the seriousness of his mission and to an unshakable faith in
victory. A victorious fighter, he is more than likely to see that faith
rewarded. Should he prefer a quiet life instead, the concrete result will be
the more modest the less pleasant a peaceful life’s task will have been for
him.
Unless provided with strongly opposing aspects elsewhere, the native will
be a revolutionist, a tribune, a tyranicide. The woman native may turn a
heroine, or a female gangster as well, as the rest of the nativity will have
it. A man, the native ought to be on the lookout against the ambushes of
the weak and of the weaker sex as well, as he can expect only trouble
from that quarter.
His downfall will spell ruin to the structure he had built and swayed.
The danger of shipwreck is also materially present; or else the native may
be forced to wander at random and to feel desperately lonely in the very
midst of human throngs.
Will power and courage will shine in adversity and will enable the native to
redress the ugliest situations and to get out of the most vicious scrapes.
But the native’s overbearingness will be hideous, his mind will be sharp
and critical, but not nimble, and will tend toward haggling and quibbling.
There is some gift for teaching and a certain freakishness.
Sources
The most popular interpretation by degrees is the Sabian Symbols which
are odd statements created by a psychic early in the 20th Century. There
exist a number of other such lists. All pages in Zodiac by Degree are
include for educational purposes: to compare with other interpretation by
degree delineations in order to study correspondences between the
authors. Wish wish to see if there exists an underlying truth or if some or
all of these are arbitrary