ESSENTIAL DIGNITIES J. Lee Lehman, Ph.D.

Copyright 1992, 1995 J. Lee Lehman Let me give you an overview of what we are going to do this afternoon. We are doing something you might call applied history. Basically the lectures being given on history at this conference have focused on the period up to Columbus because we are doing this 1492 - 1992 Discovery Conference Theme. As we go through the conference there will be other history talks including different techniques. We will be using these weird and different techniques. They seem such because at the end of the 17th century astrology more or less dropped from view. To give a very brief historical explanation, most people have thought it was because the scientific paradigm came in and astrology became nonsense within the construct of science. But in reality, the Pope was getting very upset about astrological predictions being made about his person and his Vatican state. So he started putting some significant dams on the practice of astrology. Astrology in fact disappeared more thoroughly from Catholic Europe than it did from Protestant Europe, although it declined as well in Protestant Europe. It was maintained, kind of, in England in the 18th century, most notably through the practitioner Ebenezer Sibley. He did classical astrology, but not quite. In the 19th century British astrology revived, basically through the publicist Raphael, or Raphael I, because the Raphael's almanacs etc., dated from the first of them. At this stage the astrologers really didn't understand much of classical techniques. The early 19th century astrological practitioners were not scholars, and they were basically a bit lazy. So any technique that wasn't very simple, very direct, and fully easy to calculate automatically died out regardless of worth. The major reference we are using today is my book Essential Dignities, which is, I believe, the only book ever written on the topic: classical or modern. The ancients simply included it, it was a part of the system. There are a lot more examples in the book.

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What I am going to attempt to show you is how to use Essential Dignities, how it can apply.. mainly to natal work. Now I have to tell you that much of what I have been able to learn about it has come from horary. For those to whom horary is a dirty, or at least dicey, word.. I might urge you to study horary not necessarily because you are interested in it, but because it will improve your natal technique. Specifically I recommend classical horary from that standpoint... not that I have an ax to grind! In the history of Astrology there were five Essential Dignities. In the last two centuries, three of them have often been ignored, but here we shall present them in their entirety. Essential dignity and debility are both based on the zodiacal placement of a planet or position. The essential dignities and debilities are given in Tables One through Four. Point values are assigned to each dignity or debility; their use will be considered presently. Table One is the most familiar. However, if you learned Astrology from many modern sources, you will notice that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are not represented in this Table. There are good historical reasons for this: I discussed them in detail in Essential Dignities, Chapters One and Four. In brief, the "modern" rulerships were assigned after the true meaning of "rulership" was lost. In the modern sense, "rulership" is associated with analogy or likeness: Aries is believed to be "like" Mars. In the true traditional sense, "rulership" meant "strength." There is one major difference between the traditional exaltations and the rulerships: there are no duplicate exaltations, and thus, not all signs are associated with planetary exaltations. Thus, the signs Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius are not used in the exaltation system. It was this fact that tempted some astrologers to play fill-in-the-blanks. This is a completely different operation than eliminating one planetary rulership and substituting another. Thus, while the two operations have often been performed in one breath, they cannot be justified together. Planets in domicile or rulership are strong. They are captains of their own fate, so to speak. They set their own agenda. Planets in exaltation are more in the position of honored guests. Things are done for them, on their behalf. These things are supposed to be for their benefit, but exalted planets do not control their own agenda.

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Table One. Essential Dignities and debilities: whole sign types. Point values given per Lilly.

Sign
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 =

Domicile (+5)
g f d s a d f g h j j h

Exaltation (+4)
a s . h

Detriment (-5)
f g h j j

Fall (-4)
j

/ g

d j

h g f

f a s . h

/ g

d s a

Table Two. Triplicities as given by Claude Dariot and Johann Schoener, as well as most medieval sources, and William Lilly. Point value is +3 for chosen type. Sign
1 5 9 2 6 0 3 7 4 8 =

Dariot: Day
a f j f

Dariot: Night
h s d g

Dariot: Mixed
j g h s

Lilly: Day
a f j g

Lilly: Night
h s d g

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Table Two shows the Triplicity rulers. There are actually several variants of this table, but the two given are the most significant. By Lilly's time, the three ruler Triplicity system had been significantly corrupted from Ptolemy. Lilly's simplification is justifiable based on a reading of Ptolemy, however. In Ptolemy's discussion of the Trigons or Triangles, short shrift was given to the mixed ruler of the three Trigons other than Water; and Mars was mentioned as the primary Water ruler. Thus, Lilly's two ruler system could be understood to represent the spirit, if not the letter, of Ptolemy. Ptolemy's use of the third or mixed ruler - other than in the case of Water - was principally in describing the effects on the weather. Planets in Triplicity are generally considered lucky. The terms are probably the most difficult of the essential dignities to understand, because the origin of the terms seems the most arcane. The simple fact is that we may never know what they are, but only that they were derived empirically. The question is, empirically from what? Was it a case of the Babylonian astrologers sitting down in their teams of observers and tabulating when particular kinds of questions were asked, and what degrees the planets occupied then? Or were the terms a translation of something else, as Tester thought that they were derived from heliacal rising times? We don't know. What we do know is the Ptolemy listed two term tables, those that we now call the Ptolemaic (Lilly called this set Chaldean) and the Egyptian. The two tables were variously adopted by astrologers, although there did seem to be an eventual Catholic-Protestant split, with the Catholic contingent under the "leadership" of Placidus favoring the Egyptian terms, and the Protestant group including Lilly favoring the Ptolemaic ones. The basis for assigning terms seemingly was to reward those planets with greater numbers of essential dignities (Sign, exaltation and Triplicity) in a sign by making that planet the first term ruler, and to assign benefics more degrees than malefics. The planet which is the ruler by sign, exaltation, or Triplicity tends to get the first term position most frequently. This falls off dramatically after the first position. As one may note from the tables, Mars or Saturn get the final position. This no doubt is the origin of the rule-ofthumb assigning the final degrees of any sign as having malefic qualities. Planets in their own terms denote the participation of the native or planet in the business of that planet, but not from a position of power, wealth, or fortune. The issue of that planet is important, but the outcome is uncertain.

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Table Three. Ptolemaic (Chaldean) and Egyptian terms. Point value is +2 for chosen type. Ptolemaic 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 = 0h 6 0 f 8 0 d 7 6 f 14 8 d 15 7 h 14 6 h 13* 6 d 13* 7 f 13 6 f 11* 6 h 14* 8 f 14 6 d 12* 6 d 12* 8 h 14 14 d 21 15 h 22 14 f 21 13 d 20 13 f 19* 13 h 18 11 h 19 14 f 21* 14 d 19 12 h 19* 12 f 20* 14 d 20 21 g 26 22 j 26 21 j 25* 20 f 27* 19 h 25* 18 j 24* 19 d 24* 21 d 27* 19 j 25 19 g 25* 20 h 25* 20 g 26 26 j 30 26 g 30 25 g 30* 27 j 30 25 g 30 24 g 30* 24 g 30 27 j 30 25 g 30 25 j 30* 25 g 30* 26 j 30

0 g 6 0 j 6* 0 d 7 0 j 6 0 g 6 0 h 8 0 f 6*

0 j 6* 0 f 8

Egyptian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0h 6 0 f 8 0 d 6 6 f 12 8 d 14 6 h 12 7 f 13* 6 f 11* 7 f 17 6 d 14* 7 f 11* 12 f 17 7 h 14* 7 f 13* 12 d 20 14 h 22 12 f 17 13 d 19 11 j 18* 17 h 21 14 h 21 11 d 19* 17 d 21 14 f 22* 13 h 20* 20 g 25 22 j 27 17 g24* 19 h 26* 18 d 24* 21 g 28* 21 f 28* 19 h 24* 21 j 26 22 j 26* 20 g 25* 25 j 30 27 g 30 24 j 30* 26 j 30 24 g 30 28 j 30* 28 g 30 24 j 30 26 g 30 26 g 30* 25 j 30* Lehman Dignities 5

0 g 7 0 h 6* 0 d 7 0 j 6 0 g 7 0 h 12 0 d 7*

0 d 7*

0 f 12 12 h 16 16 d 19 19 g 28 28 j 30 The final essential dignity is the face. We have already seen that the Triplicity rulers and term rulers were derived from the higher ranking essential dignities: the Triplicity from the sign and exaltation, the term from the sign, exaltation and Triplicity. On the one hand, the derivation of the faces is extremely clear, but the rationale behind it in light of the reasoning of the other essential dignities is opaque. Table Four. Comparison of Faces (Chaldean decanates) and (Oriental) decanates. Point value given by Lilly was +1.

Sign 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 =

0 - 10 g d h f j a s g d h f j

10 - 20 a s g d h f j a s g d h

20 - 30 f j a s g d h f j a s g

0 - 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 =

10 - 20 5 6 7 8 9 0 = 1 2 3 4

20 - 30 9 0 = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The division of the 360E circle into units of 10E was known as an ancient system. These 10E sections in fact represented asterisms, components of constellations, and were time markers on the way to being able to measure planetary positions to degrees, and finally, minutes. The order of the faces is simple: begin with zero Aries. The first 10E of Aries is assigned to Mars, the ruler of Aries. From there, each face ruler in sequence is the so-called Chaldean order: Mars -> Sun -> Venus -> Mercury -> Moon -> Saturn -> Jupiter -> Mars, and so on through the signs. Reading down any column in the faces gives the order of the planetary ruler of the days of the week: the Sun for Sunday, the Moon for Monday, etc. I thought since we were sitting here in Dixie that we would start with a chart for the Confederate States of America. Let us delineate this chart and see what we can see. The data comes from Nick Lehman Dignities 6

Campion's Book of World Horoscopes. For those of you who need a quick refresher in your history, this is actually for the meeting of the Confederate Congress in which they declared independence from the United States: so it was the equivalent of their Declaration of Independence. We know that the Confederates lost the war, but retained the heart of a certain portion of the U.S. Even today, in many parts of the South, the Stars & Bars are every bit as common, at least on the front of trucks, as the Stars & Stripes. Let's see what we can get out of this chart, and some of this we will compare to the U.S. chart as well. We have a Gemini rising chart for the Confederacy.. many of us use a Gemini rising chart for the U.S. The Ascendant in this case is 0E Gemini. Most people who are using a Gemini rising chart for the U.S. are using a 6/8E rising, so it is a little bit earlier. Now, as we know, 0E of a sign represents change point and the Confederacy was a change. Basically you had a portion of the country rebelling, from the perception that Abraham Lincoln was going to do dastardly things to their slaves. So, like the U.S. chart if you accept the Gemini rising chart, it would have Uranus rising. The Civil War was a Uranus return, or fairly close to one for the U.S. which seems appropriate since it was a major change for the U.S. as well as for the Confederacy. So in that sense the Uranus qualities are maintained between the two charts. We will begin by reading the chart in a modern/conventional way, and then we will see what we can do with it by adding the dignities. This was a noon chart so you have the Sun at the Midheaven.. Mercury is combust, conjunct the Sun, within 4E. Mercury is the chart ruler since it is Gemini rising, so being with the Sun, it is 'burned up' as we might say. Combust. Modern astrology doesn't have a whole lot to say about combustion, but classical does. A combust planet cannot be seen. It is a location which is good for secrecy, not for open dealings. It has difficulty acting independently of the Sun. The Part of Fortune is conjunct Neptune. Whether you agree with their point of view or not, there was an idealism that was being played out in the South. There is all that stuff we learned about the alleged gallantry of the southern troops. How much is real and how much isn't, I leave to better historians than me. Pluto is in the 12th, with Mars on the 12th cusp. On the 9th house cusp there is Venus/North Node

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conjunction. The Moon is in the 7th, widely opposite Uranus. In the 4th house Jupiter & Saturn are approaching conjunction, but it was not yet in sign since Jupiter was still in Leo

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Let us now add the 'Essential Dignities'. The portion that will seem familiar are the rulerships and exaltations, and opposite the rulerships, the detriment, opposite the exaltations, the fall. We have the Sun in its detriment in Aquarius. What does it mean for a planet to be in detriment? We all know what the detriments are but we don't normally think about what does it mean to have your Sun in detriment because we can just think about it just as one of the qualities of Aquarius. We tend

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to think, Mercury in Pisces which is its detriment. So what are the qualities of Mercury in Pisces? We tend not to think of it as detriment because we have assumed this quality detriment into our description of the sign and the planet in that sign. What we are going to do is extract that out a little so we can see what is sign and what is detriment. First, we see Sun in detriment, in this case (of course 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing) we know that in fact the Confederacy spent most of it's life detrimented. There was never enough money, never enough troops. They had the better generals, no question about that. They had the better strategy, but the Union had money and technology and there were a couple of costly mistakes. That is the basic bottom line. This is saying that having your life force in detriment means you may have certain difficulties in the expression of that life force. It is clear to see here. I am not saying people with Sun in Aquarius don't live as long as people with Sun in Leo. There is no evidence for that. What this says is there is a problem in the expression of that Solar energy. These guys were going off to war, but they weren't able to be as effective as they could have been under other circumstances. That's one of the first qualities already of the detriment. There are no planets in either Exaltation or Fall. Next let's consider the Triplicities. This is an interesting case of the language getting confusing because Triplicity in the classical sense was a kind of dignity. We think of Triplicity as being synonymous with element. In the Triplicity system, depending whether it was a day chart or a night chart, you had a different Triplicity ruler. In this particular case, We have Sun in Aquarius, go to the Aquarius line, go to the right column, to the day column, the Triplicity ruler of the Sun is Saturn. Saturn has to do with material want, deprivation. Saturn is the traditional ruler of slavery, so you have multiple elements coming into play. The Sun's sign ruler is Saturn by the old rulers system, and the Triplicity ruler is also Saturn. These issues that are Saturn ruled are of primary importance. The Midheaven is also ruled by Saturn. Mercury is Saturn-ruled, so this is a major theme going on. With Mercury being the chart ruler, Mercury's dignities become a description of the whole situation. Basically, the dignities provide a way to delineate the chart other than the aspects between the planets. This system goes back further than Ptolemy. So this is an ancient system. In Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos this question of essential dignities is one of the major considerations in how to delineate a chart: on a

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par with the aspects, and also interestingly, the solstice points, but that's another lecture entirely. Consider the Saturn theme here. You have two of the essential dignities of the M.C. being ruled by Saturn. Now look at the table, under Exaltation, for Aquarius. There is no Exaltation ruler given. I might add that there has been considerable disagreement among people who use the 'modern rulerships' as to what Exaltations to plug in anyway. Later I'll discuss how you got the modern rulerships and what they are. If we continue along our examination of the dignities, the next type is the terms. There are two major types, and the nomenclature is a bit hairy: Chaldean, and Egyptian, although there are occasional other variants. People who tend to use placidean divisions use Egyptian terms. People tend to use Regiomontanus tend to use Chaldean terms. Which is not to say that one is better than the other. They may have different purposes. What do you do with the terms? The word "term," if you follow it back to the Greek, refers to a boundary line between city states or property. So, a term represents a boundary. The way that you find the terms from a table is as follows. Look at the furthest left term under Aquarius. You see the Saturn symbol and then 6: so 0E up to 6E, the term ruler is Saturn. Mercury's terms run from 6 to 12, Venus from 12 to 20, so in this case the Sun is in the terms of Venus. They are kind of like irregular decanates, only there are 5 of them per sign instead of 3. Finally you get to the faces. They look like the decanates but they aren't. If you read across in Aries you see Mars/Sun/Venus, instead of Jupiter which is what we do with decanates. The sequence there is known as the Chaldean order of the planets. The Chaldean order is the desquence of planets in the order of mean motion from the slowest to the fastest. The Chaldean sequence you read left to right is also the sequence of planetary hours. There is another sequence embedded in the Faces as well. Follow down the middle column: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Those are the planets for the days., planetary days. There is a logic, a coherence in how this is put together. In this case, again staying with the Sun, we have the Sun in Mercury's face. So let's see what these dignities mean. The rulership of a sign, denotes a planetary force where you are in control, master of your ship, you initiate what happens. You do what you want. What you end up being, doing, whatever, is not because of external pressure on you, but because you choose it. How well you

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choose it, that we don't talk about, but it is your choice. A planet in Exaltation is like an honored guest, and unfortunately I have to add, in the old sense.. because if you look at tradition, cultural hospitality. If you were a guest in someone's house they did everything for you. We have these conventions now where if someone is staying with you it is polite to give them a gift. In the old system you never did that as a guest, in fact when you left you were the one given a gift. So a planet in Exaltation, it's not as you were doing it yourself, you are having it done for you. When you have a planet in it's own Triplicity, you tend to be lucky. You don't necessarily have things happen because you are good at them, but because you stumble upon a good result. This is when the Wheel of Fortune stops on your color. Terms, unfortunately, are described in virtually all classical sources as being"of the body." Well, what does that mean? In horary it is very clear because it is the physical description of the person, or the Quesited, or whatever that you use the term ruler to show what the person looks like, or is like by profession. So, it is a description, the person 'is of that kind'. Now, we are not talking about talent. If you are talking about a person where the major planets are in the terms of Saturn, you have a Saturnian quality. It doesn't mean they are good at being Saturn, it means they are Saturnian, they tend to be taciturn, they scowl a bit, may be dark, may walk around with a dark cloud, may be pessimistic. Saturn quality: it is not excelling at Saturn-ness, it is being Saturn, there is a big difference. The Face: this is where my experience with natal work, differs somewhat from horary. Because Face is an essential dignity which means in horary you do have a planet with a bit of dignity which can be very nice when you are doing your reading. But unfortunately in natal, a planet in its own face basically means that is an area you are concerned about. Concerned can easily become anxious about, and worried about. It can even become fearful of. In my book I've got some examples of some of these guys like Ted Bundy and Son of Sam - the serial killers. You see a number of the ones who were specifically preying on women show up with Moon and Venus in it's own Face. Clearly the idea of 'woman-ness' was not one these guys had a good time with. This is different from horary where the Face is a little more positive in it's interpretation.

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While the Faces or Decanates are mostly ignored in modern method, this was not true through the Renaissance. Ramesey gave a listing of each face individually and its qualities. Lilly in his eclipse book considered Solar and Lunar Eclipses in each face position. Wing used the faces in weather forecasting, a practice which extended at least back to the Middle Ages. We've already looked a little bit about Detriment, when a planet is in Detriment means you have a certain amount to overcome. You are three steps back at the starting line. With the Fall you are only two steps back. One of the synonyms for Fall is Exile. If you think on the one hand about being an honored guest, on the other hand think about being an exile. It is the opposite concept. Having gotten this far, we have two more concepts of essential dignity to bring in. The first is mutual reception. Let us begin by defining mutual reception, and for that we turn to John Gadbury, page 43 : "Reception is performed by House, Exaltation, Triplicity and Term: and it is a sign of a propitious Nativity, where all the Planets are mutually received of each other. This may be, first by House; as Saturn in Taurus, and Venus in Capricorn: and of all Receptions this is the best. Secondly, it may be by exaltation; as Venus in Capricorn, and Mars in Pisces: and this is a good Reception also. Thirdly, it may be by Triplicity; as suppose the Nativity to be by day, and Venus in Aries, and Sun in Taurus: and this is good, though not so excellent as the other. Fourthly, Reception may be by Term, thus; Mars in 16E of Gemini, and Venus in 24E of Aries: here Mars and Venus are in Reception by Term. This is the meanest of Receptions; yet is better then none at all: Half a loaf is better than no bread. In Nativities, respect the Planets that are in Reception, and the Houses they are Lords of; and if you finde the Lord of the Ascendant in Reception with the Lord of the Fourth, say, The Native and his Father shall agree well: the stronger the Reception is, the more durable shall their agreement be." So what does "strength" of reception mean? There are two answers. On the one hand, as Gadbury mentions, reception can be by any dignity. A reception by sign (domicile) is stronger than by term. Secondly, there is the issue of how strong the planets in reception are apart from their reception. One other thought. In Gadbury's day, two planets would be considered to be in mutual reception if they shared any dignity between them. Thus, Mars in Libra was considered to be in mutual reception with Saturn in Scorpio. Saturn is in Mars' sign, while Mars, in addition to being in Detriment, is in Saturn's exaltation.

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Morinus was the first to use the term mutual reception only if the reception was of the same type, e.g., both in each other's exaltation. He denied the usage of "mutual reception" if the reception was of a different type for each planet. Thus, Morinus was the source of our modern idea about this.) Mutual reception is easy to grasp as a concept, but more difficult to understand in practice. Gadbury implies that a mutual reception is a good thing. But how good? I began to search the classical literature in order to find a really satisfying discussion of the meaning of reception, as contrasted with its application. The spark for the meaning came from al-Biruni (1029), page 312 (Point 507): "Reception. When an inferior planet arrives in one of the dignities proper to a superior one, and makes known to it the relation thus established, there is an exchange of compliments such as 'your servant' or 'neighbour'. If further the superior planet happens to be in a situation proper to the inferior one, mutual reception takes place, and this is fortified, the richer the situation is in dignities, especially when the aspects indicate no enmity nor malevolence. When reception does not take place the result is negative." The clue to this passage came from understanding the context of al-Biruni's culture: the Medieval period. Dismissing the cultural norms of sexism et al, pretend you are the Medieval lord of the manor. (After all, Astrology is written for nobles. They can pay!) So you have this land and this castle. You must defend it from other lords, who covet it. How do you do this? You rely on your allies: your vassals, your immediate relatives, and your wife's relatives. The question is, how good are your allies? They may or may not show up when they say they will. They may not be numerous enough to dispel the enemy. Or, one of your allies may be strong enough so that once he helps you dispatch your enemy, he then dispatches you and takes over! A planet in mutual reception is your ally. How good an ally is dependent on how well dignified the other planet is apart from the mutual reception. Let me illustrate this point with the Confederacy Chart. Here Mercury and Saturn are in mutual reception. What does this mean? Well, Mercury as the chart ruler is the Confederacy itself. Saturn rules the 9th and 10th Houses, so among other things, Saturn rules foreign powers. The Confederacy attempted to get the support of foreign powers. How useful was this support? Not very. Saturn has no other dignity. It is square Uranus, and trine Pluto. Saturn is not in a position to deliver the goods. As we know, the North was in a much batter trading position than the South, so the amount of foreign aid that the Confederacy

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got was negligble. So while Saturn could potentially provide aid, or an "out" to the Confederacy, it didn't have the power to perform very much. Now we get to the word peregrine. This is one of the major concepts in the interpretation of planets using the essential dignities. Unfortunately, like the word Triplicity, peregrine has since come to mean something other than what it originally did. For centuries, if not millennia, the definition of peregrine was: a planet which lacks all essential dignity, and it was sometimes further specified that it is also not in mutual reception by sign and exaltation. A peregrine planet cannot have any dignities. For example here we have a peregrine Sun: it is in Saturn's sign, there is no exaltation, it's in Saturn's Triplicity, it is in Venus' Term and Mercury's Face. The second, and somewhat controversial, criterion is no mutual reception by either sign or exaltation. You might ask why I only said sign and exaltation. Well, I don't know: all I can tell you is if you go back and look - the most recent reference I have found is Richard Saunders in the mid 1600's. He referred to major dignity and the minor dignity. Sign and Exaltation were considered major dignities; Triplicity, Term and Face were considered minor dignities. So, what we managed to bring up to the 20th century were the major dignities. You look at classical references and they tell you what they did but they don't tell you why. They may tell you how, but they certainly don't give you the philosophy of it! So you're on you own for surmising why the minor dignities were so minor. So, some of this we have to learn ourselves. So we have a seriously debilitated Sun in this chart. In fact, in the Confederacy chart, the only peregrine planet is the Sun, and Saturn, if the mutual reception with Mercury is not considered. (It certainly didn't seem to be any help!) Since we are doing classical rulerships the only planets that count are those to Saturn. Now those of use who delineate classically rarely throw out Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. We just don't use them in the dignity system. You notice I set it up by mentioning the Uranus return in the U.S. chart. Uranus is perfectally legitimate in classical delineation as far as being in a house. It's quality is certainly something which we can interpret. As for its sign: as you know we don't usually do much about that except pontificate it: "Those who are of the Pluto in Leo generation..." Another concept that frequently gets confused is in this mess of modern sign rulers is natural rulers. Now, what is a natural ruler? Astrologers throughout the millennia have tended to ascribe nouns to planets, signs and houses. So that for example you can say that Saturn rules the element lead, or that Mercury

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rules quicksilver, or the element Mercury, or you can say that the Moon rules women, or that Aries rules England. These are natural rulerships. One of the points here is that we are not necessarily excluding Uranus, Neptune and Pluto from natural rulerships. If it was a question that involved electricity, most classical horary astrologers would be perfectally happy to use Uranus. There is a little horary debate about whether it is better to use Uranus or Neptune for airplane travel and air flight. It is basically between people who study this. There are a bunch who study crashes who think Neptune is a better significator of airplanes and air flight. I would certainly, in a question about rape, look at Pluto.. no question about it. Drugs, oil.. Neptune. On the other hand it's also instructive to find out what the classical ruler of it was if it is something that existed in earlier days. Now, how to find the classical ruler. Well... go to the book store and pick up book which is called The Book of Rulerships! It is an alphabetical listing of subjects, as well as a by planet, sign and house listing. Natural rulerships in classical systems are listed using references from Ptolemy through John Partridge, who was at the end of the 17th century, with page citations for those of you who want to go and look it up. Where you will find, I guarantee you, nothing but a bloody list, because they didn't ever explain why they did these things! It is instructive, for example, in the case of petroleum or oil. The traditional natural ruler is the Moon, so if you want to go back and look at Bhopal, or a number of the accidents where we talk about gas leaks or other kinds of leaks, you will find the Moon as prominently as you see Neptune. If I were looking at a question of deception, obviously you would want to look at Neptune. However, if it is a question about whether a statement is truthful, you would also want to look at the ruler of the 3rd House! So in this chart, getting back to the Confederacy, we have a peregrine Sun, so there are certain problems. I mentioned that in natal work having a planet in Face is not really so great, unless there are other dignities of that planet, in which case the Face is going to have the least effect. In the Confederacy chart the Moon and Mercury both are in their own Face, but there is one other situation. We have a mutual reception between Mercury and Saturn by sign, the kind we are all used to picking up. Another indication in the chart of Saturn, Saturn, Saturn. The themes here are, the chart ruler in mutual reception with Saturn.

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This issue keeps showing up as the theme, and I haven't said a word about the aspects in this chart. Once you get used to this method it is possible, but not recommended, to delineate a chart using essential dignities and accidental dignities exclusively. It is an interesting exercise. So what is dignified? We have Mercury/Saturn so we have these whole issues, the chart ruler keeps getting this Saturn stuff. We have the slavery issue, we have the question of want and deprivation. Who is strong here? Well, it is Mars, and isn't that what this is all about anyway? It was certainly the bloodiest thing that happened in U.S. history up to that point, basically because the technology for killing people had improved since the last time we had been to war. Always a dangerous thing, technology. So, Mars on the 12th house cusp is the strongest element in the chart. Mars is very strong, so what did they do? They fought. We are looking at a mundane chart. The 10th house, among other things, is the government. This isn't a kingship. (the 10th house is the king, or as Louie XIV said "I am the state.") You've got the Sun at the midheaven, Saturn ruling the midheaven, in mutual reception with Mercury, all this Saturn stuff going on and your basic government is not in great shape. The 11th House is the legislature. You have good perhaps, from the Part of Fortune, but you have Neptune on top of it. So your legislature isn't in good shape, so let's consider further: Jupiter rules the 11th house, speaking classically. Jupiter is in the 4th in Leo, which is not its best sign. Jupiter does have term, so you have a legislature that looks like a legislature, acts like a legislature: from an appearance standpoint, which is what a term rulership is. They were real good at discussing and debating, not surprisingly with Jupiter trine Mars. Accomplishing? That was another matter! Leo? a little stubbornness there. The Confederacy adopted a document equivalent to our Articles of Confederation, where the states had all the power. Ultimately one of the deciding factors in the Civil War was that people like General Lee couldn't get the money, troops and support because all the states were quibbling about their own army.

Everybody remember Henry Kissinger? He used to hang out with Nixon. we still see him on television being asked to pontificate about world events. I wanted to focus in on a bit of this. His chart is a very interesting chart, using many delineation techniques. Here's this guy with Sun in Gemini and Gemini rising. He did seem to never be short on words. In fact I

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can't remember ever seeing him speechless. We could say, with the Ascendant, Sun and Moon all in Air that we have an airhead here, but airheads can have depth too! In his chart the Sun and Moon are peregrine. The planet with the most dignity is Venus. I thought this was very interesting because for a long time he was thought to be a serious ladies man, so there was that quality of his persona. Dignity is not the same as talent. All the dignity guaranteed was that he was able to pick and choose when it came to women. He did. Venus is close to 12th cusp but not on it, not an especially strong house placement. I don't think that you would pick out Venus as being very prominent in a 20th century style delineation. What you would probably be focusing on is the Moon/Saturn conjunction. While he might deal well with women in the Venusian sense, he has a mommie issue here.

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This is just a quick delineation based on a planet having a great deal of dignity. Sun and Moon are peregrine, yet clearly this is a successful man. This is a point I want to make about peregrine planets. If you are reading a horary chart and looking for a lost article, then if the Significator of that article or the

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Moon is peregrine, the lost object is usually damaged. In natal, we are not saying that Kissinger is damaged, but that it may take the person a wandering or indirect path to get to the point that they ultimately want to go to or get to. The root of peregrine is the root of our word peregrination. This is one of the interesting things in the chart of the U.S. because there are a lot of peregrine planets. Most people are charting the Declaration of Independence as the chart for the U.S. If you actually look at the history of the document, we think of it now as being under glass and safe, but for the first couple of years of the Revolutionary War it wandered, or peregrinated, all over the place. It is interesting because in some of the history books, they specifically refer to it as the peregrination of the Declaration of Independence. It is a wandering, it is not going from point A to point B by the quickest path, which is not to say that you don't get there ultimately, but that it is not as direct as when you have planets in dignity. Then you are a bit more in control of your environment, or there are people looking out for you, which is the case with the Exaltation.

This chart is for Michel Gorbachev. This is a rectification chart by Joan Quigley. I figure she had a little experience with it so I'm not going to quibble with it. I hadn't intended when I selected these to get all this Gemini stuff, but here you are, Gemini rising. Sun in Pisces.. Moon in Leo, quincunx to the Sun. In his case the Sun/Moon/Mercury are all peregrine. The planets that have fair amounts of dignity are Jupiter and Saturn. Fair amounts of dignity? What do I mean? In this case you could have a field day with aspect patterns.. the Sun/Moon quincunx, Jupiter also at 10E, lots of aspects... Mars at 27E opposite the Venus/Saturn. To calculate the amount of essential dignity, look at the table given. A planet in its own sign or in mutual reception with another by sign gets a +5. In exaltation, or reception in exaltation a +4. In triplicities +3, in term +2, in face +1. So you figure the five essential dignities, if any are of that planet count 5-4-3-2-1, so you can get composite scores. The programs available to do this count the points associated with mutual receptions. Most of the time, I omit these. A planet just in its own Triplicity would have a score of 3. A planet, as in the Confederate chart, where the planet is in its own sign as well as its own Triplicity would be 5 + 3, or 8. So in Gorbachev's case, the two most dignified planets are Jupiter, with Jupiter in Exaltation and as the Term ruler, and Saturn in

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Capricorn, in mutual reception to Mars by Term. I probably wouldn't count the points associated with the latter because the reception is too weak. We can observe that he didn't do so well with his second Saturn return to put it mildly, but the peregrine Sun/Moon/Mercury doesn't stop success, although it was

by a rather tortured path.

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If you read biographies about Gorbachev, getting to power in the Soviet Union was not an easy process, not one where you did three things and were suddenly at the top. He had to do a multitude of jobs and there were a lot of zig-zags along the way. That is characteristic of peregrine. I think we can see some of that quality during the time of crisis last summer as all the mundane astrologers I knew became CNN junkies for 20 hours a day at least. Things were changing, things were happening and when you saw Gorbachev, once he got out of captivity, he kept changing his path and we saw that he would periodically do all kinds of things that would twist and turn along the path. He was threatening to resign, then he would take over some department, or add a title, or subtract a title, or change people around him. This is the wandering, peregrine qualities. You can say, his Sun is in Pisces, he didn't know what he was doing, or couldn't keep his mind about what he was doing. So clearly this is the chart of a person who doesn't have so much trouble changing there, but in his heart, Moon in Leo (we know how pliable Moon in Leo is), so with the Moon being a little bit stubborn and also peregrine, this pattern of having to do these switchbacks was not emotionally comfortable for him. It might have been necessary, but was not easy. So here you are seeing a conflict between what his life ran like, through peregrine, and his emotional preferences. Moon in Leo would be happy if things didn't change except the ways they want them to. Jupiter is his most dignified planet, in the 1st house, retrograde, so things didn't always work directly. Certainly he enunciated an ideal in terms of Glastnost which has prevailed even if his ideas and his plans for what the system should have been did not ultimately succeed: for him, anyway.

Let's look at Carl Jung. Again you wouldn't lack for ways to delineate Jung's chart and of course, there have been a number of astrological studies published on Jung, including one by Charles Harvey on Jung/Freud and that in itself is fascinating study. Freud was a Taurus, so you can play Sun/Moon games. With Sun and Uranus in the 7th house, Jung certainly did break a little bit of new ground, when you look at his chart after just looking at Gorbachev's.. Gorby had quite a bit of mutable which made his zigging and zagging easier. But with the Sun and Moon both in fixed this is not somebody who found ground breaking as a comfortable emotional experience.

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Jung's most dignified planet was the Moon. When you look at his contribution to psychology and

philosophy, his concepts such as anima/animus have been attractive to a lot of women, who have gotten disgusted with concepts like penis envy. One of his significant contributions was to talk about the female side of the psyche as well as the male.

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The only peregrine planet Jung had was Mars, so maybe he didn't do so well on the male side. Or, he did a rather nice job of redressing the balance a little bit. We have a couple of male indicators of course, the Sun being another. I'm going slightly into horary technique here, in which the Sun is natural ruler of men. The Sun also has quite a bit of dignity in his own Sign, as well as Triplicity. The Sun not quite as strong as the Moon, but here you see both the Sun and Moon very dignified. You probably know Jung played around with astrology; he in fact was quite interested in it and found it necessary to tone it down quite a bit for "political" reasons. Among his extant works published by Bollingen is Syncronicity; I encourage you to read it. There is an astrological study of marriage in it, and it is an interesting study. He took married couples that had been together for long periods of time: successful marriages vs. unsuccessful marriages, and what were the components of the successful marriages. One very high grouping was Sun/Moon itself. In Jung's own chart there is a Sun - Moon square by sign, this would indicate a conflict. Jung helped a lot of people through conflicts. He said it was necessary to be both the anima and the animus, and with the two principal planets representing these concepts square to each other, I don't think he had any choice about expressing both concepts! This is the dignity of the two, even though their signs are square. I might mention that Taurus and Leo are antiscial to each other, that is another interesting relationship in this chart. Jung's ruler was Saturn, if you are looking at chart rulers. Saturn was certainly strong in his chart, in its own sign Aquarius, although retrograde, an accidental debility. Now, there are certain planets, and Jupiter and Saturn appear to be this type, which appear to show "better" expression in the sign of their Exaltation rather than the rulership sign. This may be related to the concept of Almutens. Certain signs have more of a tendency for the exaltation planet to be stronger. For example two are Cancer and Libra. If you were dealing horary or natal prior to 1600 and we were talking about the ascendant ruler, the ruler we would be using is not necessarily the sign ruler. What we do is say Capricorn is on the cusp, therefore the ruler is Saturn. But, we would actually take this degree in Capricorn and add up the dignities. Which ever planet came out as having the highest point value would be the Almuten of that house. So the two signs where you most likely will see changes between the Almuten of the house and the sign of a house is when that cusp is Cancer of Libra. Other signs, Leo/Aquarius/Scorpio, because they lack an exaltation you almost never see another planet coming into more prominence.

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In order to calculate the Almuten, the exact degree of the cusp or position is needed, plus whether the entity is given by a day or night chart. For example, one may calculate the Almuten for an Ascendant of 15 7 30 in a night chart as follows: Sign (domicile) ruler: Exaltation ruler: Triplicity ruler (night): d Term ruler (Ptolemaic): h Face ruler: f 5 points j 4 points 3 points 2 points j 1 point

Both Venus and Saturn get five points total, so they are Co-almutens of the degree. To simplify this process, I have prepared two tables, labelled Six and Seven. They give the Almuten for each degree of the zodiac, given day or night.

I thank Diana Rosenberg for pointing this next chart out to me. The Seneca Falls Convention?? This was the first convention of women to deal with women's issues. A lot of the women came right out of the temperance movement, but this was the first time they got together to discuss their own issues. It is a fun chart, this is the chart for the women's movement, at least in the U.S. The British movement was a separate thing even though it was taking place at much the same time. Women's convention... Sun in Cancer... I assume they didn't have their official astrologer to elect this, so Sun, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter all lined up together in the 10th house. The Moon in Pisces along with Saturn in the 6th, although Saturn is within 5E of the Descendant, so we have an angular Saturn. That Saturn is sitting right on the South Node. The Moon is conjunct Neptune, both are opposite Mars. This has not been an easy struggle. A lot of the things they were talking about in 1848, we don't have yet. So unlike the Confederacy, one could argue that Feminism comes along and starts and stops, so it is not dead legally, but it was never legally present. This is not the chart of a corporation, or a country. In this case the Sun/Moon/Mercury/Jupiter/Saturn are all peregrine, so if you want an example of an entity that would operate by perigrinating, which is to say wandering, fits and starts, jigs and jags, this is it! It's not that you can't accomplish it. But that you cannot do it by a direct path.

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In this particular case, there are no planets in either Detriment or Fall. So you are not dealing with that, where you have a central debility/weakness, it is just that this is an indication of a movement that is not capable of going in a smooth flow from Point A to Point B. There are fits and starts, whole decades in between when there are bits of intense activity. So this is the quality, fits and starts. It is a very interesting chart and the more I got into it the more descriptive it really is. You can also play around with transits to this chart and if you have interest in this area I encourage you to use. Neptune was discovered around this time. And of course, 1848 was a watershed year in Europe as far as politically revolutionary was concerned.

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Why is this discussion of classical rulerships mild heresy compared to what you learned? This discussion would not be complete without discussing some of the modern rulership. Here I think I want to ask: what is a sign ruler or a degree ruler? This is the essential point. Basically, the person who first attempted

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to apply a sign rulership to an Outer Planet was Raphael I, and he attempted to apply Uranus to Aquarius. If you read what he had to say about Uranus, none of it makes any sense. He did not have a clue about what Uranus did. He did note it in some accident charts but he didn't get out of that, that it had to do with sudden events. If you look at the quality of the delineations of the planet by the contemporary astrologers after the discovery of the planet, it generally takes a few decades for astrologers to get a handle on it. I have to give you one exception, Isabelle Pagan described the co-ruler of Scorpio as being something called Pluto, back 30 years before the planet Pluto was discovered. In general it takes people a while to come up with descriptions, yet during that same period where they are not describing it very well, the sign rulership of that Outer Planet has in fact been assigned. That is an interesting phenomenon. Maybe another broader question is this: there might be another planet out there. A lot of astrologers believe there has to be more planets in the solar system, although I think it may be worth considering how big the piece of orbiting rock or ice has to be to call it a planet. At any rate there are other planets out there, so potentially another planet is working, waiting to be a sign ruler in the modern system. So if you ask people what is their criterion, and you can see this clearly in the astrological literature of the 30's and 40's after Pluto was discovered, what everybody talked about was, "well, now I think Pluto is most like..."' and the sign that most fit that list is Scorpio. So the modern definition of what a planetary ruler is, is which sign most resembles the perceived quality of that planet. What I have been talking about has nothing to do with that idea!

What I have been talking about is what sign is a planet strong in, and what is the quality of that strength. That is a completely different question than the modern one of what's it like. If in fact, the concept were true, that Uranus, for example, is most like Aquarius, let's play with that concept. The first words that come to mind for Uranus: sudden. Fixed air is sudden? Even there you get into some problems because none of the lists match completely. I wanted to do an independent analysis of this question, which is in my book Essential Dignities so I won't go through the full delineation. I decided there are basically two theories that people come up with for the outer planets, apart from the actual delineation of the planet. Idea #1 is what it is most like, which

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is the modern rulership. The second one is this concept 'higher octave'. You hear people talk about Uranus as the higher octave of Mercury, Neptune the higher octave of Venus, Pluto the higher octave of Mars. Given the words that describe Pluto I have a little trouble using the word higher. Apart from quibbling about the terminology, if this were true that in fact the way we operate is by this use of Uranus as the higher octave of Mercury, etc., what should also be true is if you took a moldy oldie source of natural rulerships and compared it to a modern source of rulerships and then looked for the shift, (because you wouldn't have Uranus/Neptune/Pluto in the old book) if you took the words that were in common between the two books and took the Uranus words and looked to see what planet was the ruler in the old book, it should be Mercury. If you took the Neptune words and look in the old book it should be Venus, if you took the Pluto books and looked in the old book it should be Mars. Isn't that logical? I did that comparing al-Biruni, which had a very complete, exhaustive list of words, and Rex Bill's Rulership Book. When I did this comparison, what you would think would be the case, is not the case. The vast majority of words associated with our three outers come from Saturn. In other words what has in fact happened, opposed to the lip service that we like to think happened, is that we took one malefic Saturn and added three more. What is interesting about this is one of the modern psychological knocks on classical astrology, specifically horary, is you talk about malefics! Well, in horary you've got three, Mars/Saturn/South Node. In modern you've got six: now who is more into malefic? Because that is in fact what was done. Saturn was split into four planets. There are very few overlaps. The closest to this higher octave, is Mars and Pluto. There is a little overlap there, there is almost no overlap at all with the others. Even with Pluto the bulk of the words are Saturn words. I think this points out the issue that has been raised by modern rulerships is really a completely different issue than dignity understood in a classical sense. Dignity in a classical sense was one means of delineating a chart. The way that dignity is defined now by modern type astrologers is an affinity question and it comes to the concept of the 12 Letter Zodiac, which is the theory that there is an equivalency on some level between 1st house, Aries and Mars.

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Nobody in classical astrology did this with two exception. One is a medical use, where if you look at a listing of parts of the body, there is that equivalence although they didn't talk about it as such. The other is Ptolemy's list of geographical places, where he equated the places ruled by Mercury to either Gemini or Virgo, for example. Those are the only classical usages. I think what has happened to our astrology is a simplification. There are certain qualities of Mars that are similar to qualities of Aries and the 1st house, but the list is not exhaustive. The ancient co-significator of the 1st house was Mercury, and how do we come across to other people, but by what we say? We unfortunately have a tendency to more believe what people say than what they do, which would be Mars. So what you have with the modern dignities is a simplification. So the question I ask you is which system gives you more information? Is more useable? Gives you something not otherwise in the chart? In fact, in doing the modern rulerships with the exception of picking what planet to use as a house ruler, very little is in fact done with the dignities. They get a little lip service, they get defined when you learn astrology, and then they get ignored. I hope you have learned a little more about how to use them. If you want to get into the moldy oldies I recommend William Lilly's, Christian Astrology. It's his magnum opus. If you are nervous about the title, the reason for this was that Lilly and his contemporaries were criticized in their day for using a few too many works by the heathen Arabs, so the title was the political correctness of his day. This book is about half horary, half natal, it will give you excellent reference. The horary section is quite usable by natal astrologers as far as the rulerships are concerned. A lot of the information on the rulerships is in the horary portion. The planet Pluto is strong in aspects. I don't think this is a strength in the same sense as the classical dignities are concerned. One of the things I think is the problem is when you get to the outer planets, a whole delineation of them is somewhat different than the classical planets. We talk about the planets past Saturn in terms of generational matters. Saturn has just gone through Capricorn and we had roughly 2 years of Saturn in Capricorn. No one 20 years from now is going to talk about the Saturn in Capricorn generation. There is a different flavor to the way we delineate the Outer Planets. The way I would delineate them is if they are in a house, you interpret in terms of the house, you interpret aspect patterns, natural rulers. This is in effect the same approach I would advocate with respect to the

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asteroids and comets. I wrote a book called The Ultimate Astroid Book. Most of the people out there doing 'roids are attributing sign rulerships to them. The problem is when you start having roughly a few hundred asteroids ruling any particular sign, you have a problem in doing interpretation. It doesn't bother me that there are blanks in the exaltation table or that there are repetitions in the sign table as long as when you interpret a planet in those particular places, doing the delineation in a classical way gives you valid information. That is the bottom line. When we study the classical period, we are examining a time prior to the period when science had very much value in society. Their approach was not scientific as we would know it now. Some of what you are getting is not from my scientific background, but from my horary training. One of the things that horary does for you -- when you then go back to natal -- is that horary enforces in you this whole question of astrology as a predictive craft. There aren't too many people where you could say, 'you're very nurturing' where they would reply, 'you're full of it!' There are a lot of things we do in natal that may in fact be true, but where you can't get feedback to hone your technique. In horary, if you say the ring is in the bedroom, and it turns out to be in the bathroom, you are wrong. It is a real fast way to check your technique. Since I've been involved in horary my approach to natal is much more bottom line. Thank you so much. Recorded at UAC, April 16-21, 1992, Crystal City, VA.

Contact Lee at: PO Box 501107 Malabar FL 32950-1107 USA (407) 728-2277 (Phone) (407) 722-2060 (Fax) http://www.leelehman.com

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Source of Data Used

Confederate States: time given for the assembly of the first Confederate Congress, in Nicholas Campion. 1988. The Book of World Horoscopes. Aquarian Press: Wellingborough. Henry Kissinger: Birth data from his birth certificate given in "Sein und Werden"; cited by Valliere in "AAM" for July, 1975. Source: Blackwell Database, available Astrolabe. Michel Gorbachev: Rectification by Joan Quigley. Carl Jung: about 7:3O p.m. LMT (18:52:4O UT). Birth data of the psychotherapist has been given by him. Time of birth given by Jung as "7:2O", "7:3O", and for other times near sunset and dusk. A good discussion of the data was given by Lois Rodden in the "Journal of the Seasons", vol.19 for Autumn 198O, publ. by the Astrological Society of New Zealand. Source: Blackwell Database, available Astrolabe. Seneca Falls Convention: Cited by Elaine McCullough. 1994. Roe vs. Wade - A Platinum Anniversary. Planet Earth Aquarius Issue: 14-15. I have seen the citation elsewhere, but have been unable to track the original source, except by title of the book: Century of Struggle .

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References

al-Biruni, Abu'l-Rayhan Muhammed ibn Ahmad. 1029. The Book of Instruction in the Elements of Astrology, translated by R. Ramsay Wright, Luzac & Co.: London, 1934. Reprinted Ballantrae: Toronto. Bills, Rex. 1991. The Rulership Book. American Federation of Astrologers (AFA): Tempe, AZ. Gadbury, John. 1658. Genethlialogia, or The Doctrine of Nativities Together with The Doctrine of Horarie Questions. Printed by J[ohn] C[oniers] for William Larner. In production: Regulus Publishing Co., Ltd.: London. Lehman, J. Lee. 1989. Essential Dignities. Whitford Press: West Chester, PA. Lehman, J. Lee. 1992. The Book of Rulerships. Whitford Press: West Chester, PA. Lilly, William. 1647. Christian Astrology. Reprinted in 1985 by Regulus: London. Partridge, John. 1679. Mikropanastron, or an Astrological Vade Mecum, briefly Teaching the whole Art of Astrology - viz., Questions, Nativities, with all its parts, and the whole Doctrine of Elections never so comprised nor compiled before, &c. William Bromwich: London. Ptolemy, Claudius. 2nd Century A.D. Tetrabiblos. Translated by F. E. Robbins. Harvard University Press: Cambridge. 1971. Ramesey, William. 1653. Astrologia Restaurata; or Astrology Restored: being an Introduction to the General and Chief part of the Language of the Stars. Printed for Robert White: London. Reprinted Ballantrae: Toronto. Saunders, Richard. 1677. The Astrological Judgment and Practice of Physick, deduced from the Position of the Heavens at the Decumbiture of the Sick Person, &c. Thomas Sawbridge: London.

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