Taking the Kid Gloves

Off Astrology
by Garth Allen

Confronting Saturn’s Realties

What Jupiter is All About
Revealing Look at Mars
Unmasking Venus
Neptune Seen from New Angles
Uranus For Instance
A New Look at Mercury
Pluto Maligned Planet of Miracles

Introduction
These extraordinary articles by Garth Allen (Donald Bradley) are among the most important in astrology’s vast
literature. Originally appearing in American Astrology Magazine from October 1955 through May 1956, they were
republished in the 1970s, incorporating supplemental material the author had penned in the interim. In 1975, they were
issued in book form by Clancy Publications. They have long been out of print.
One article is devoted to each of the eight non-luminary planets. These are among the most lucid, comprehensive,
and expressive material on the planets ever written, partly because of their actual content and partly because they stir
the reader to thought and reflection. They are also some of the earliest published material framing astrology in terms
of depth psychology, one of the 20th Century’s great emerging new fields; and they are an early, powerful voice for
the necessary eventual convergence of astrology and psychology.
Their weaknesses are small, and are a natural consequence of the passage of time. One must occasionally remem-
ber that they were written in the mid-1950s. Cultural references, social context, and language standards (e.g., on gen-
der) are anchored in that era. To the author’s credit, these only occasionally intrude. Also, much of the theoretical
framework is from psychological theories no longer in vogue (e.g., Freud’s model of early development stages mostly
has been superseded by later theories), although, on close reading, I do not find that this detracts much from the
presentation, and not at all from the power of the articles to get the reader to think!
Just remember that models – whether astrological or psychological models – are merely organizing frameworks
of thought, representing the terrain without pretending to be the terrain itself. They are maps.
In the intervening 60 years, some words have fallen so out of vogue that you may not find them in dictionaries.
The most important of these, for the articles following, is ergie. It comes from the same root as erg (and the center of
energy), and represents the fundamental psychological energy or impulse behind a planet. If you trace the author’s
thoughts carefully, you will find a model in which an ergie (primal psychic energy natural to the planet) ignites an
urge (a natural, instinctive impulse), which in turn stimulates a fundamental need. Behavior typical of the planet comes
from these urges and needs impacting, interacting with, and adapting to one’s environment, especially during key
development stages and other experiences that resonate similarly within the psyche.
I hope these articles bring you the enjoyment, excitement, discovery, and empowerment in astrology they have
brought me for over 40 years.
– James A. Eshelman

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 CONFRONTING SATURN’S REALITIES
For several thousands years, each of the influential planets in astrology has been considered the ruler
or sponsor of certain objects, subjects and functions. It was not until the introduction of the various depth
psychologies in our time, however, that astrologers found anything like a systematic understanding of the
whys and wherefores back of these traditional allocations, these symbolic associations of earthy things with
celestial.
There can be no mastery of astrology without an understanding of astrological symbols. By astrological
symbols we do not necessarily mean the handy glyphs which we use to represent planets, signs and aspects
in a horoscope. In fact, we suspect the average reader is more than a little weary of the repetitious, abraca-
dabra treatments of the symbology of the cross, the crescent and circle. We are most concerned with the
planets themselves as basic symbols of the dynamics of life. By an eclectic consideration of what the sci-
ences of psychology and psychiatry have to offer the modern student, we can uncover the psychical origins
of the traditions of astrology. The Twentieth Century astrologer, unlike his predecessors from the dawn of
history onward, knows that there is a real rhyme and reason for every symbolic connection which the tra-
ditions of his profession have held, as gospel for countless centuries of seeming disarray.
Take Saturn’s symbolism, for instance. No clearer example can be found of the logical explanation by
modern psychiatry of time-honored astrological tenets. The reader must be warned beforehand, though, that
when we enter the realm of depth psychology, we meet head-on with topics which social mores have draped
heavily with taboos so powerful as to seem, to many people, to impose a prohibition on even purely intel-
lectual consideration. Therefore, the interested reader should evaluate the subjects touched upon in terms
of enlightenment gained thereby rather than for their parlor propriety or lack of it. Great care has been taken
to select the least offensive euphemisms for terms which might otherwise be thought censurable.
To begin with, consult any good textbook on astrology and review briefly the numerous things and
processes which Saturn is stated to rule. You will note an insistent tendency toward dark, secretive, morbid,
funereal, isolative, penalizing and depressive items and relationships. You are already aware that Saturn is
traditionally malefic in nature and negative in most of its allocations, yet you probably sense an aura of
apparent contradiction as you mentally mark such tenets as these, that Saturn rules both uncleanliness and
sanitation, or even more puzzling, that this planet which causes loss should also pertain to real estate, sub-
terranean treasures and capital itself. To prove that there is logic behind these seeming paradoxes, as well
as behind all the morbid connotations noticed, we have but to consider the symbolism of Saturn in the light
of what psychoanalysis has discovered about the working of the human mind.
Saturn in your chart at birth represents the struggle to maintain life autonomously, to fend for yourself,
so it is appropriate that the textbooks should call Saturn the planet of livelihood, of burdens, of loneliness,
of worry, of self-denial and toil. The first law of life, according to Herbert Spencer, is that of self-preserva-
tion, and in psychoanalytic astrology we relegate Saturn’s stage in the development of personality to the
entering of the newborn babe into “the cruel, cold world.” The first breath taken by a new arrival is its first
attempt at self-preservation.
There is a basic correspondence between the order of the planets and the stages in the creation of an
individual, beginning with Pluto as symbolic of conception itself. Neptune, the planet of the Nirvana com-
plex in human beings, is a perfect symbol of the nine glorious months' vacation in the Garden of Eden
which psychiatry tells us is the symbol of the intrauterine bliss which the unconscious mind never forgets
and to which it endlessly yearns to return. To be born is to be expelled from Paradise, a shocking, painful

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experience plainly mirroring the nature of Uranus, the planet of the onslaught of reality. True to the Edenic
allegory, a return to the blissful prenatal state is impossible, for with the cutting of the umbilicus (the silver
cord of occultism), a sword-wielding angel forever bars the way. The Expulsion also entailed such penalties
as the travail of giving birth, the need to work hard for mere bread, and the curse of things like crabgrass
and grubworms.
It is easy to trace in these fall penalties the psychological origin for most of our Saturnian keywords
and associations in practical astrology. Saturn is “all work and no play” – many a Jack with Saturn domi-
nating his chart has been called a dull boy. The labor motif of Saturn calls to mind a famous poem. “The
Man With The Hoe,” which contains just about every Saturnian standard keyword imaginable

Saturn Denotes Autonomy

Saturn is generally said to be the planet of Law, of rules and regulations, of the status quo, of bounda-
ries, limitations, inferiority and adherence to patriarchal precedent. The first overt act of the newlyborn is
to clutch at the environment with anxious fingers. We know that Saturn dominated people are often miserly,
not having outgrown this yen to grasp hold of and retain whatever can be reached. There is no philanthropy
in the planetary ergie of Saturn which symbolizes, in all human beings, that infantile state of interest in
nothing but the self. Saturn is often called the planet of selfishness by astrological students and not without
sound reason. A baby feels exiled from the peace and warmth of its original abode, which awareness gives
rise to the self-pity and deep-seated sense of resentment of the world which we refer to Saturn’s influence.
Chartwise, Saturn denotes one's autonomy – self-sufficiency and self-government. The stronger the
natal Saturn, the more compelling the need to put emotional distance between oneself and other people.
This need to be self-contained reflects in an effort to be resourceful, if necessary even to restrict the personal
needs and demand privacy. Hence, astrologers associate Saturn with childlessness, bachelorhood, sexual
abstinence, miserliness and luxury denial, etc. Disliking the sharing of experiences, a Saturn dominated
soul is especially sensitive to anything which smacks of coercion, persuasion or obligation, and this applies
as well to his emotional nature which he habitually tries to hold in check in order to suppress the more
passionate feelings. Sexual relations are enjoyable only if they are transitory, for any inroad of prolonged
closeness usually results in a cooling off of ardor, finally resulting in impotency and frigidity. One of Sat-
urn’s basic associations is with cold, so it is no mere coincidence that the human psyche exploits this sym-
bolism in our everyday language. The refusal motif of Saturn likewise draws on the same symbol via such
expressions as cold shoulder and icy stare. The No! of Saturn is also evident in the characteristic way people
strongly affected by this planet refuse to concur blindly with the majority. This persistent disagreement
with the throng is simply another expression of the Saturnian drive to preserve autonomy and integrity.
According to analyst Karen Homey, a worry is a reaction to a threat to one’s autonomy. Saturn is
invariably considered the planet of old age, and, to speak figuratively, every Saturn aspect by transit and
progression means another grey hair. Logic shows that worry is nothing more or less than an anxious
thought that one is unable to retain autonomous control over the surroundings, or, simpler, that one may
not be able to have his own way in the given matter. The most frequent source of worry is, of course, the
imminence of economic insecurity, so it is not without reason Saturn is said to be the planet of poverty, of
being reduced to the bone. Poverty is the condition of existence in a milieu reduced to the barest require-
ments for survival.
Saturn’s regency over the dirt motif is one of the derivatives from the original dust to dust theme in the
unconscious, which points in turn to the concept of sin which is eternally symbolized by soil, mud. filth,
smut, rottenness, ill smells, and things pertaining to death such as burial and the classic spectre of a scythe
bearing skeleton. The most characteristic act of victims of compulsion neuroses is compulsive washing.
Many an old maid is allergic to dirt of any kind and a tiny speck of it has caused many a tantrum. Religious
ablutions perform, on a collective level, the same psychological function as washing does in the compulsive
neurotic whose problem, to a psychiatrist, is simply a tortuous subconscious guilt complex. Even in normal
life we aver that “cleanliness is akin to godliness,” and to be culpable is to “get caught dirty-handed.” The

4
godhead overtone in this imagery stems partly from the traditional consignment of the symbol of Saturn to
inadequacy and the inferior. Saturn’s paradoxical rulership of both dirt and cleanliness originates in the
same psychic patterns of mankind which consider both ceremonial ablutions and self-humiliation in dirt
and ashes as approved means to win divine acceptability. All of us have had first-hand experience with the
Saturn-dominated personality which takes great pride in its humbleness.

Origin of the Money Complex

The accent of symbology on foul things brings us, oddly enough, to that prima facie of Saturn – its
rulership of money. The secret of this surface paradox in astrological concepts is no mystery to the astrol-
oger versed in psychology. To quote the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, “Wherever the archaic
way of thinking has prevailed or still prevails, in old civilizations, in myths, fairy tales, superstition, in
unconscious thinking, in dreams, and in neuroses, money has been brought into the closest connection with
filth.”
The money complex has its genesis in infancy, in that Saturnian period of early life following birth
when the child is trained primarily for only one achievement before anything else is expected of it – control
of the excretory system. Many psychiatrists have recorded their findings that when there was an abnormal
focus of attention on toilet activities in infancy, the persons in question developed the character trait of
miserliness in later life. This is the outcome of extreme instances of what is called anal-fixation, of course,
but since everybody has Saturn somewhere in his horoscope the basic meaning of the planetary ergie is the
same in all people. Even the most delicately authored astrological text blandly lists the excretory system
and things pertaining thereto as the province of the planet Saturn.
Other common by-products of what doctors call anal-fixation arc such attributes of character as order-
liness, frugality and obstinacy. Carried to excess, as in the case of Saturnian types, these traits lead to fa-
naticism about uncleanliness, intolerance of moral and racial differences, and a neurotic repugnance for
natural body odors and secretions. Saturn is invariably powerful in the charts of those in whom racial and
religious prejudices are excessive, just as Saturn is the hyperactive ergie in the horoscopes of prohibitionists
of any kind.
Infantile interest in the process of defecation and its product undergoes gradual psychological (symbol-
ical) transformations as the child grows older. The roots of this fascination lie not only in the pleasurable
sensations of the act, but in the fact that the child’s first objective impression of the world into which it was
born rotates around mother’s apparently all-consuming attachment of importance and value to the child’s
bowel movements. Mama worries and petitions earnestly when the child holds back but is pleased when
the precious contents of the little body are delivered. Therefore, according to infantile reasoning, this sub-
stance must be extremely valuable. The mystery is heightened, however, for despite the fact that it is often
mother’s keenest desire, she reacts to it with disgust and taboos the child’s natural curiosity about the sub-
ject. While evidently the most valuable thing in the world, it is also the nastiest and dirtiest. Here, plainly,
is the source of the guilt complex and sense of sin where “pleasures of the flesh” and “worldly goods” are
concerned. The ethics of the human race have always maintained that “the love of money is the root of all
evil.”
The transformations spoken of arc the natural follow-up of the child’s conformity to parental conviction
that the smell of dejecta is disagreeable and disgusting. To the untaught babe, as to the animal, the evacuated
material is somewhat pleasurable to the smell – a fact we adults tend to forget and, when reminded, never
talk about. As a sense of cleanliness is cultivated in the child, it represses its anal-eroticism and replaces it
with symbolic substitutes but not before, incidentally, the average Saturn sensitive child senses that his
growing control of excretion affords some measure of control over mother's temperament, too. The mudpie
stage, being that of playing with deodorized excrement, undergoes a further distortion, that of dehydration,
which leads to the sandbox. Pebble collecting and marble playing arc further transformations of the original
fondness for feces, and it is here that we see the first glimmer of capitalism, since these copro-substitutes

5
are instinctively viewed by children as their treasures, as things of value which they trade among themselves
as media of exchange.
All this while, in its training, the child’s sense of hygiene, of cleanliness, is being improved upon, so
that the ultimate identification of feces with gold is inevitable. The metamorphosis leading to this identifi-
cation is a kind of alchemical process in the psyche, i.e., transmutation of “base metals into gold,” the
inferior matter having been culled from the “bowels” of the earth. The child learns that real money, of
which gold itself is the eternal symbol, enables one to obtain nearly all the heart can desire.
Those with a strong natal Saturn have a stronger fixation than average on the value of coin, and like the
compulsive neurotic and his stools, takes even more delight in collecting money than in spending it. Gold
in legend and fairy tale is consistently found in a pot or urn. Even the name Saturn means “pot, or urn, of
the soul.”1 The soul itself is frequently symbolized by gold in mysticism, a most curious fact because the
traditional ruler of the constellation of the urn-bearer is Saturn. Moreover, Aquarius is also the Earth’s
position when the Sun is dignified in Leo, and the Sun, too, has long been associated with gold and the soul.
Despite the seeming thoroughness of the transformation on the level of actual consciousness, the un-
conscious proves that it remembers the real significance of shekels by siring such everyday expressions as
filthy lucre, stinking rich, holdings, piles, liquid assets and current capital. It should be added that, according
to psychoanalysis, the desire for precious gems and jewelry is but another transformation of the childish
appreciation of marbles, buttons, bits of glass, fruit pits, and the like, which are childhood’s money. The
American term dough is as clearly a copro-substitute as the European’s expression for wealthiness – stone
rich. It is probably not an accident that the German word for possess is Besitz which literally means sitting
upon, and that the day of rest should traditionally be Saturn’s day. While there may be nothing pleasant to
the sophisticated adult about them, euphemisms for toilet are rest room, comfort station, and like names
alluding to pleasantry. So it is not a real paradox in the astrological doctrine, after all, that the planet which
precipitates loss should also rule capital.
Since the instinct of the Saturn ergie is planted inescapably at birth into every human being, all social
theories and political ideologies, such as Marxism, which do not recognize the inviolability of the instinct
for ownership and autonomy in individuals are doomed to failure.

The Taproot of Our Fears

Viewing our overall subject now from another perspective, we see Saturn as the basic planet at the core
of our compelling need to be self-sufficient, to do our own dirty work, as it were, free of extricating emo-
tional ties. Hence, Saturn signifies the need for privacy. The privacy theme of Saturn is also a ramification
of the toilet motif, which is instinctual, as demonstrated by the natural animal habit of trying to hide or bury
droppings as a measure against enemies, the same burial motif met in many other symbolic forms, liking
hoarding and planting, in our sweeping survey of Saturn's traditional rulerships and connections.
To summarize, we see where in the extreme, Saturn becomes a compulsion for detachment, as with the
hermit and miser, the monk and purity fanatic, which results in a suppression of sentimental feelings within
one’s self and a vengeful view of moral weaknesses and behavior differences in others. Even the tyro in
astrology knows how often Saturnian types of people are teetotalers. The Persian poet Hafiz, as is the case
of most poets, hit upon a great psychological truth when he wrote that “those who cannot drink cannot
love.” The typical Saturnian views love as possession, and seems to be overly punishment minded where
the failings of others are concerned.
So it appears that all the Saturn ruled complexes have their origin in the cradle where an angelic face
often masks a tiny soul fraught with bitterness for being incessantly interfered with. All the textbooks refer
to Saturn as the planet of fear. To approach an interpretation of the natal Saturn in a horoscope in terms of

1
This is not an actual etymology of the planet name, which stems from the name of a (likely) Etruscan agricultural
god and a (possible) root meaning “to sow.” Rather, I think the author alludes to puns, linking the Sanskrit word sat
with the English word urn. – JAE

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fear is to delineate it properly, strange as this may seem to the beginner. Saturn dominant in a chart can
mean a fear of life which automatically leads to a repression of the desires and the struggle to build fences
and safeguards against the outside world. Likewise, it can denote a fear of death, according to psychoana-
lytic astrology, which disguises itself as a drive to be productive and constantly busy in order to perpetuate
one’s self in work and not allow one’s self time in which to entertain the prospect of dying.
Those with strong Saturn configurations at birth actually tend to destroy themselves in efforts to keep
busy and preoccupied (the labor-motif in full bloom). They make, for this reason, excellent managers, or-
ganizers and business people. But even a superficial psychologist knows that a frenzied striving to amass a
fortune too large for anybody to spend in a lifetime is the result of a subconscious hope that the Grim Reaper
will be as afraid to get chummy with the mighty nabob as everybody else is. He knows he can’t take it with
him but he hopes that through accumulated power and control he may not have to go.
Sometime in the future, every professional psychologist will be a competent astrologer as well, and
every astrologer will be a competent psychologist. The writer trusts that no reader has been offended in any
way by our necessary excursion into topics not ordinarily met with in astrological journalism. Yet, the fact
that very few astrologers even today are good psychologists, and few psychologists know one planet from
another, implies that these forthright explorations have been long overdue. Students must learn why a given
astrological tenet is true if astrology is to become a science in the fullest meaning of the word. Unfortunately
it is presently where medicine was four hundred years ago – for the most part in the hands of barbers.

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 WHAT JUPITER IS ALL ABOUT
In a previous article we showed how much more there was to this subject of planetary symbolism than
the usual texts of astrology convey, using Saturn as an example. The point was to demonstrate that depth
psychology throws the light that astrologers have long needed on the psychological origins of the thousand
and one things which tradition has regularly lumped under the aegis of each of the planets. There is one
common denominator at the core of each mountainous pile of seemingly unrelated objects and subjects
which any given planet is uniformly said to rule.
Where Saturn was concerned, it became plain that the common denominator of everything said to be
under its rulership stemmed from the subconscious appraisal of the excretory function in ways that are
obvious to every psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. The delicate nature of some of the subject matter which
we had to discuss may have annoyed the sense of propriety of that segment of readers in whom the ergie of
the planet Jupiter is unusually powerful by birthright.
This possibility actually provides us with an opener for the present article which is a treatment of the
significance of Jupiter, the oh-so-proper planet in astropsychology. We shall show that, like all the planets,
the basic psychic symbolism of Jupiter has, as a common denominator, its etiology also in a purely physi-
ological function – that of accretion – in the same manner whereby Saturn’s is rooted in the process of
excretion. Accretion is scientifically defined as “increase in size by external addition,” but in everyday
terms we think of it as meaning nutrition. Jupiter and Saturn, clearly, rule opposite ends of the digestive
tract! Those readers already versed in the fundamentals of modern psychology, via popular manuals on
infant care, will recognize this truth.
As in connection with Saturn, we must revert back to infancy in order to better understand how the
Jupiterian ergie expresses itself in human life in its simplest forms. The earliest explicit expression of Jupiter
awareness in the dawning of individual consciousness is the birth of what is ordinarily called the religious
urge. Immediately after delivery into the world, the infant’s every basic need is automatically taken care of
by the mother or nurse. But this period of virtual omnipotence in its nascent existence is short-lived, as the
encradled child begins to learn from experience that it must wish for a thing before it is realized. It begins
to sense, for the first vague time, that it is not truly omnipotent and must make use of signals, special
mewlings and gestures, else it is not so content and comfortable as previously. True, mother has taken
careful pains to reproduce the (Neptunian) intrauterine situation as nearly as possible: wrapping the babe in
soft coverings, rocking it gently and crooning monotonous rhythms to emulate the mother’s swaying move-
ments, heartbeat and respiration, et al. The attempt is never entirely satisfying, of course, but the newcomer
endeavors to make the best of things.
The Hungarian psychiatrist Ferenzi called the Good Old Days in the womb the “period of unconditional
omnipotence,” and that period immediately succeeding birth he labelled the “period of magical-hallucina-
tory omnipotence.” The diction of these terms implies the changes having taken place: at first, the child has
only to wish or imagine an end-aim, and satisfaction promptly follows. Not knowing or understanding what
is really occurring, the child, after a fashion, believes himself to be a magician. If hungry, he wishes to be
sated. Not long afterward he is, as though by the possession of some magical capacity. When uncomforta-
ble, hungry or feeling pain, he magically wills it to end and lo! the discomfort ceases – a sort of primordial
application of faith healing. But this hallucinatory wishing stage gradually wanes to the point where wishing
itself is inadequate and some motor exertions – signals – must accompany the wish before a satisfactory

8
fulfillment comes about. This new compromising situation Dr. Ferenzi referred to as the “period of omnip-
otence by the help of magical gestures.” It is at this stage that what we call the religious urge becomes
differentiated – becomes a drive in human makeup on an equal footing with the other biological drives.
The infant is becoming aware of a world outside itself which is peopled with supreme beings who must
be pleased and petitioned, who give rewards for good behavior and who punish for transgressions. Nobody
ever quite outgrows this subconscious apprehension of powers greater than himself who are both a threat
and a blessing to his existence, who must be both loved and feared, respected and obeyed. This fact is the
underlying reason for the traditional association of Jupiter with religion, judgment, ritual, Providence, the
benevolent despot, the doctor, guardian angels, even Santa Claus himself, no less, and whatever smacks of
Shamanism in community life. It is easy to comprehend why the gist of the standard keywords appurtenant
to Jupiter in practical astrology can be traced to this period of environmental adjustment through which
every human being passes in the nursery stage.

“Little Table, Be Spread!”

The tonus of this infantile Jupiterian stage of personality development clings to our unconscious all
through our lives. In childhood, and even later in most instances, the Jupiterian ergie deep within us asserts
itself in the form of ceremonial acts, superstitions and magical formulas. Typical Jupiterian exercises in-
clude prayer itself, formal oaths, mantrams, affirmations, benedictory gestures, making the sign of the cross
for protection, crossing the fingers, knocking on wood, hiding the thumbs, tossing coins for decisions (in
fact, divination of any kind), stepping over cracks in sidewalks, having mama kiss where it hurts, and so
forth. All such actions and habits are expressions of the religious striving sponsored by Jupiter. The growing
child who mutters, “Little table, be spread,” is a miniature of the serious adult who prays, “Give us this day
our daily bread.” In any case, the religious complex operates basically through propitiation of outside agen-
cies. A materialistic psychologist would, on first encounter with astrology, quickly see in Jupiter the key to
the animistic habit of human beings.
It is not a mere accident, therefore, that religious Weltanschauung of all kinds, whether in the bush or
on the Main Line, are primarily patterned after the family institution. The dominance of the Madonna theme,
or reference to God as Father and to mortals as “His children,” are not surprising coincidences from the
standpoint of psychology. In their arguments atheists make capital out of what they consider discrepancies
in the logic of the religious urge, yet it is no more ridiculous for a Christian, by way of example, to accept
the vengeful Jehovah of the Old Testament along with the Heavenly Father of the New, than it is for a child
to continue to love his father despite what happened in the woodshed. “Whom the Lord loveth, He chasten-
eth.” One’s father, prototype of the Almighty, can behave heavenly one moment and give one hell the next,
or so it seems.
By-products of religious awareness are the totems and the taboos which are the bedrock of etiquette,
social mores and morals, civilized institutions and, primarily, the concept of quality. Just as we saw the
etiology of the concept of inferiority in Saturn’s development in our souls, so we can see plainly the Jupi-
terian source of the superior. Hence, Jupiter is said to rule those subjects and principles which, lumped
together, represent culture and things essentially honorific. This concept of quality innate in Jupiter’s sig-
nificance leads directly, as does the godhead symbol itself, to the principle of hierarchy and ascending
scales of social status. The Jupiterian ergie gives rise to the cognizance of eminence, lordship, finesse,
aristocracy, royalty, and the like. We regularly call that which possesses pomp and circumstance Jupiterian
by nature.
In astrology, the professions which represent cultural authority and social superiority, such as the med-
ical, the priestly, the financial, the judicial and educational, are automatically relegated to Jupiter. Govern-
ment and sports, too, as occupations, arc considered earmarks of superiority in the scheme of things. There
is no real paradox in the consignment of sports to both Jupiter and Mars in the perennial texts. Mars repre-
sents true athletics in which actual physical ability tells the tale, whereas Jupiter is the patron of recreation

9
and those sports in which the muscles are spared through the use of equipment, such as in yachting and the
hunt, or the exploitation of other living things, such as in horsemanship or, for that matter, golf and bowling.

Leisure and Copycatting

This brings us to the most surprising realization about Jupiter. It is not surprising that Jupiter is polar
to Saturn and thereby is symbolic of Saturn's opposites. The surprise stems from the actual ways in which
this oppositeness is evident in everyday life. Saturn is the planet of work; therefore Jupiter is the planet of
leisure. Now by leisure we do not mean laziness, indolence or quiescence. Leisure, to a sociologist, signifies
the nonproductive consumption of time or, more to the point, nonindustrial activity. Labor is irksome be-
cause it is undignified, or vice versa, according to the habitual thought patterns of civilized mankind, and
we see how accurately this idea is reflected in the pairing off of hard work and the inferior under Saturn in
astrology’s traditions. Likewise, comfort and the superior are invariably coupled under the rulership of
Jupiter.
Saturn signifies, as we learned, the struggle for subsistence and independence from others. Ergo, Jupiter
connotes the struggle for success and the emulation of others! It is to this factor of emulation, of copycatting
and keeping up with the Joneses that we referred upon using the word surprise, because it will be news to
many an astrologer that Jupiter is not of itself creative. Saturn pertains to the accumulation of money and
Jupiter signifies the spending of money. Saturn is secretive, so Jupiter is just the opposite – conspicuous.
Herein lies the basic difference between the way in which these two planets work. A miser may have
hoarded millions and become the richest man in his vicinity, but there is nothing Jupiterian about his niche
in the community unless or until his wealth is put on display. In fact, the man may enjoy no true esteem
from the community at all, despite his immense power of control, until there is a conspicuous show of his
wealth in ways considered reputable.
Esteem is the sole province of Jupiter and, as we bear in mind that Jupiter is eternally significant of the
others in human thinking, we can understand why psychologists insist that the usual basis of self-respect is
actually the respect accorded by one’s neighbors. Bear this in mind always: Jupiter in a horoscope can never
be interpreted accurately unless this fundamental element of other-ness, comparison and relationship is the
main factor taken into account. Clothing, by itself considered, for instance, may be Venusian, but fashion
in dress is surely Jupiter ruled, for sociologists unanimously agree that fashion is an exclusive phenomenon
of a commercialized society wherein social merit and economic status are awarded in ratio with the degree
of conspicuous emulation and the ability to be wasteful!
All our considerations here add up to the primary fact that Jupiter symbolizes that which is honorable,
commendable and, above all, enviable, by virtue of the leisure motive itself. Jupiter rules sophistication
because there is one common denominator about sophistication in all its variations of superfluity and that
is, bluntly, the conspicuous evidence of the lack of industrial employment. The characteristics of sophisti-
cation all smack of nonessential accomplishment. Hence, a man or woman is a true sophisticate, and thereby
superior, by possession of a knowledge of current styles in dress and architecture, and if he or she can spell
correctly, use foreign idioms with a convincing flourish, know who is who and what is what in the arts and
sports, is familiar with dog and horse breeds, knows the proprieties by heart so that decorous deportment is
automatic, and is interested in fraternal and philanthropic activities – in short, shows accomplishments
which reflect having an above average amount of leisure!
To have manners as though by second nature is as good an evidence of time not spent in industrial
pursuits as it is to be “seen in the right places and with the right people.” Right places, of course, are costly,
and the right people, quite naturally, are those who can afford frequenting them. Social worthiness is forever
adjudged in terms of evidences of not having to earn a living by the sweat of one’s brow, such as the white
collar, the perfect crease in trousers and shiny shoes. Even the humblest day-laborer tries to erase every
vestige of his occupation in his appearance when he dresses up. To a person in whom the ergie of the planet
Jupiter is dominant, the terms vulgar and inexpensive are often synonyms, cheap means shoddy, and the

10
notion of “decent” surroundings inevitably implies style and luxury. It goes without saying, naturally, that
without Jupiter in the human equation, there would be no cultural progress as we know it.

The Jupiterian Personality

When Jupiter is the most prominent planet in the chart of birth, it identifies a personality type in which
compliance is the chief trait. Such a person tends to be a conformist in the sense that he usually adopts the
attitudes and behaviorisms provided for him by cultural patterns, that is, from the outside. He is what he is
expected to be and hardly ever anything else, for his viewpoints are the viewpoints of the social order to
which he belongs, convenience being the code by which he lives out a balanced life delightfully in harmony
with his environment. What few psychological conflicts he might suffer are usually caused by his attempts
to wipe out the differences between himself and others, lest he be guilty of thinking, acting, feeling or
imagining anything which his cultural class considers not quite proper. He is perennially geared toward
people in general, rather than like his Martian cousin, against, or his Saturnian brother, away from others.
So he leans on standardized authority for all opinions and guidance, such as approved books, government,
the church, and the folks at home.
Love, to a Jupiterian, means being loved rather than the active process of loving, as illustrated by the
psychiatric fact that in the dreams of people of this type, being fed is a frequent symbol of being loved! So
oriented is he to the intake motif of Jupiter that he responds warmly to anything that looks like affection
and love, so he has many loyalties1 and cannot say No to requests and demands by those who enjoy his
esteem. While passive in these ways, he does have strong aggressive tendencies, but he represses them in
order to avoid the possibility of hostility from others. His aggressiveness, when it does show, is but an adult
version of the aggressiveness of the hungry infant toward the breast or bottle. In his social set he is the Nice
Guy, and his worldly goal in life is likely to be distinctive enough to pose for a whiskey ad or have a
photograph of his living room in a slick magazine. Romantically, he is more to be mothered than wived,
and the old maxim about the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach applies more directly to the
Jupiterian than to any other planetary type.

“Wishing Makes It So”

A basic reason why Jupiter is respected as the Greater Benefic and planet of good fortune stems from
the well-recognized fact that wishful and constructive thinking has a way of fulfilling itself. This doubtless
is the astrological key to that strange phenomenon of the psyche now called psychokinesis by some scien-
tists and demonstration, precipitation or positive thinking by certain religionists. Jupiter rules gambling and
speculation, for such pursuits are projections of the conviction that gain in some mysterious way is aided
and abetted by the mere act of believing in an auspicious outcome. The habit, of course, is a throwback to
the stage of cradle omnipotence from which none of us is immune. There is something in each of us that
eternally toys with the possibility of propitiating, deceiving or cajoling, or otherwise disturbing, the natural
course of events so that objects move and situations shape up in our favor. There is always more fervent
praying underway in a gambling casino than in any chapel; a crowded race track is the world’s greatest
prayer meeting in those fleeting moments of the home stretch.
Jupiter, as we implied earlier, is actually the planet of “superstition” and rules charms, amulets, em-
blems, insignia, badges, diplomas, degrees, uniforms, religious medallions, coats of arms, mascots, tro-
phies, even “birthstones” – in short, all the psychological implementations which are held to testify to one’s
specialness in the Cosmos, earned by virtue of exploit rather than industry. The term exploit is Jupiterian,
because the common denominator of all that Jupiter rules in astrology is advantage gained through being
superior rather than having to toil. The Jupiterian occupations include all those pursuits which have exploi-
tation as their origin and provide incomes based upon payment and tribute by others. This condition of
livelihood by exploit, incidentally, solves the sociological mystery of the equality of the low-paid ecclesi-
astical profession with the highest social and economic echelons of the community. Once this otherness of
everything Jupiterian is understood, its true meaning in terms of practical astrology will become clear.

11
Totemism
The emulation motif of Jupiter is mirrored clearly in all forms of socially expressed enthusiasm, for it
is the Jupiterian ergie which is at the heart of patriotic fervor, in the same way it impels a sailor to get
tattooed because sailors are supposed to be tattooed, or Junior to emulate his heroes through appropriate
costumes and mannerisms. A common comic spectacle of our time is a parent ridiculing his child’s emula-
tive craving for a Davy Crockett cap or a Captain Space-happy tee shirt before leaving the house to join his
fellow Caribous in an antler-fest at the lodge, or maybe to drop in for a beer at the temple where his friends
are all dolled up like Caliphs.
Jupiter, as a driving ergie in the soul of every mortal, is the planetary sponsor of this universal yen to
be visibly identified with whatever has been deemed honorable. Despite how civilized we have become we
still find our sense of social belongingness in identification with our totems. Even whole nations are sym-
bolized by totems in the same way political parties, ball teams, fraternal orders and scout troops are repre-
sented by totems of endless variety ranging from Mickey Mouse to elephants. The psychic mechanism
behind this Jupiterian phenomenon is the same subjective gimmick we believers in astrology employ when
calling ourselves “Taurus the Bull” or “Leo the Lion,” unaware of how ridiculous we really sound to the
uninitiated. Totems may be inanimate, too, and spark the same sense of belongingness imparted by living
symbols, for there is a non-animal sign in the zodiac, just as there are many ball teams which think of
themselves as rockets and steamrollers.
Totems inspire an automatic loyalty and wholesome enthusiasm in their behalf, so they are as useful as
they are at times improbably selected. They can be harmful, according to psychologists, in so far as they
destroy individual integrity and self-expression. Everybody has Jupiter somewhere in his birthchart, and
only those with a “weak” Jupiter could, without mental anguish, walk down the street in clothing a couple
of decades out of style. As a general rule, a person will be a pat conformist in proportion to the strength of
his Jupiter.
A word about the connection of Jupiter with crimes for gain as contrasted with crimes of vengeance or
of erotic depravity. A powerful natal Jupiter that is badly laced with afflictions will often compel its owner
to so crave the accouterments which signify social altitude that he may go to dishonorable extremes to
satisfy this desire, even resorting to embezzlement or outright robbery. This is the rationale for the frequent
prominence of Jupiter in the astrology of crime patterns, a situation which has misled many students in the
past into the illusion that squares and oppositions involving Jupiter are essentially bad.
Every reader surely knows at least one individual of the afflicted Jupiter type whose eyes light up at
every passing Cadillac and haberdashery window, but who cannot seen to save even a dollar a week toward
ultimate lawful purchase of the coveted objects. Society will continue to foot a staggering bill for public
crime as long as it considers conspicuous possession as something meritorious in itself and manual labor
as something intrinsically degrading. It is the ergie of Jupiter in you that makes you feel a wee bit embar-
rassed when you are with new people you would like to impress favorably but have to let know that you
work behind a counter or with a drill or beside a conveyor belt, and so on. They, too, might punch timeclocks
and cut corners to get the bills paid, but as long as you do not know this and appearances smack of sophis-
tication, it is only human for you to feel a mite self-conscious of your lot.

Music and Medicine

Jupiter plainly is the ruler of music or, at least, of musical appreciation, and this faculty is also related
to the nursery stage of development, what with mother’s lullaby and the seemingly indispensable sound-
effect toys ranging from rattles to bell-adorned playthings. The native sense of rhythm, of course, is of
prenatal origin – the tom-tom of mother’s heart and the tidal flux of her breathing – but as culture progresses,
this sense is embellished with more differentiated, organized sounds pleasing to the ear. Observe that the
more primitive the type of music heard, the more nearly it parallels what one hears through a stethoscope.

12
 Another province of Jupiter is its rulership over medicine. This is not difficult to understand as a deriv-
ative from the nursery stage when the grownups are continually concerned over the health of their offspring
and medication is applied on the most trivial of provocations. But it goes even deeper than this, for histor-
ically the medical arts originated simultaneously with religion and both are cultural expressions of the im-
provement motif of Jupiter. In the dark days of prehistory an ailing or wounded person was left to die by
his fellows because an incapacitated member was a serious liability to the whole group. But as evolving
mankind became more and more responsive to planetary ergies, the priest-physician (Shaman) came into
prominence, demonstrating his superiority by healing and consequently becoming exempt from tribal work.
A sidelight: Many newer students of astrology complain that Jupiter is often abnormally active, espe-
cially by square and opposition, at the times of severe illness and, occasionally, death, and that such a
circumstance is an astrological contradiction. The presence of a strong Jupiter on such occasions merely
indicates the eventuality of medication, expressions of sympathy (from even one’s enemies at the time!)
the gift-bearing and frequent forgivenesses, published notices and special prayers which are typical of the
milieu of illness. Were the native not running a temperature, he would doubtless consider the affair the most
Jovian he’s enjoyed in years and years. Supporting this interpretation is evidence that cases of instantaneous
death by accident or suicide, and the deaths of those who pass away bereft of friends or medical care, are
not synchronized with such significant Jupiters.

Contrasts, in Closing
Most of the contrasts between Saturn and Jupiter will have become obvious to the reader by now. In a
nutshell, Saturn represents the vital necessity to maintain life by one’s wholly private capacities, but Jupiter
symbolizes “the silver platter’ – life sustained by outside agencies. Jupiter’s basic overall symbol is that of
accretion, just as Saturn’s is excretion.
There is also a difference worth mentioning between Jupiter and Neptune which otherwise have much
in common. Jupiter represents the Utopian Complex, whereas Neptune goes farther back in time and fosters
the Nirvana Complex itself. Jupiter “within us” merely wishes to return to the cradle and breast, but Neptune
“within us” longs for the even more blissful state of prenatal existence. The Neptunian stage is where eve-
rything is supplied without asking, but Jupiter must ask or demand before it receives (the propitiation motif
in purest form). In other words, we might say that Neptune rules the placenta, Jupiter the nipple (the ra-
tionale for the exaltation of Jupiter in Cancer, the sign said to rule the breast in zodiacal melothesia). Sym-
bolically, this is the difference between heaven and religion in depth psychology. Moreover, while Neptune
figuratively wears an effulgent aura, Jupiter wears the robes of royalty. Neptune totes a halo, Jupiter sports
a crown.
Dr. Carl G. Jung was right when he declared that “Astrology represents the summation of all the psy-
chological knowledge of antiquity.”

13
 A REVEALING LOOK AT MARS
This series of articles is a planet by planet outline of the underlying reasons, the common denominators,
which are the psychic origins for the basic symbols of traditional astrology as a depth psychologist would
see our subject. In each instance it soon becomes transparent that a planet’s function is best understood by
tracing its almost endless stream of associations back to a particular physiological function which is its
symbolic key.
The physical process is itself secondary, for the thing that most concerns us is the fascinating fund of
psychic lore about this process which has accumulated in the collective mind of the human race to become
(a) grist in the mill of every psychiatrist and (b) the most intelligible explanation for the bulk of astrology’s
patchwork quilt of precepts. Our contributions in these articles will have little value to the student who is
content with merely accepting the statement that Saturn rules alarm clocks or that Mars rules pepper and
Neptune, salt-water. Our intended audience is any devotee of astrology with the gumption to want to know
why he or she believes a thing and finds the belief justified by daily experience.

Climb from the Cradle

Of all the planets Mars is probably the easiest to understand, so it is natural that the casual believer in
astrology has a clearer visualization of what Mars really represents than he usually has of the other planets.
In a nutshell, the planet Mars symbolizes aggression, physical intelligence, precipitate action, pain and
generative power. Martian influence in our lives is best exemplified by the function of the adrenalin. The
ebb and flux of this endocrine in the circulatory system sponsors our spurts of courage, regulates blood
pressure and the tonus of the involuntary muscles, endows a second wind as we are exercising and magnifies
our strength and physical intelligence rating at moments of stress, fear and anger. By transit and progression
Mars mainly times the sort of events and crises, such as accidents, brawls and similar emergencies, and the
crests of erotic excitement, when the adrenal glands are called upon to do double duty. Experience shows
that Mars is even the significator of nightmares from which the dreamer awakens in terror with his system
virtually flooded by this glandular secretion.
The etiology of these primary rulerships, as in the case of the other planets, lies principally in some
early stage of the development of the individual personality. We learned, for instance, how clearly the ergies
of Saturn and Jupiter take hold and objectify themselves on subconscious layers of the psyche, like barna-
cles on a hull, at definite experience levels of the budding individuality. There is a rough orderliness to the
jelling of planetary forces in this way, so it is no surprise that the Martian period in early life starts at the
age when baby takes his first step on his own. Learning to walk, to control one’s own movements, is life’s
first major challenge for which there is a physical answer. Jupiter and Saturn, recall, were the cradle planets;
Mars as muscle symbolizes the climb out of this condition of comparative subservience.
Appropriately, child psychologists label this same period, which lasts ordinarily until the age of four in
our civilization, the drying-out period. There is a wealth of psychological meaning in the ancient description
of Mars as hot and dry. As the Mars period progresses, baby is less and less a soggy bundle of joy, so that
by the time the average child is ready for the brief but vital Venusian stage, at the age of around five, it has
almost completely mastered the sphincter muscles. Notice how thoroughly the familiar hallmarks of Mars
are reflected in this dehydrating period. Physical adaptation is the keynote of every hour spent awake. The
output of energy every hour of the day is so tremendous even the best-conditioned adult athlete could not
bear up through an afternoon duplicating every movement, every squirm, romp and wiggle of a normal
child at play. The end aim of the Martian cycle is to achieve exacting muscular coordination, learning to
walk and handle a spoon properly being the preliminary goals. Mars poignantly reflects its nature also in
the fact that this is the onset of the age of cuts and bruises and the fulminating infections of childhood.

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Every day nets its quota of minor pains and hardly a week goes by without its injury, its lump on the
forehead or skinned knee.

The Mark of Cain

In practical astrology we refer to Mars as the source of the competitive instinct or the predatory urge.
In the growing child the energies of Mars reach their fullest freedom of expression at that stage we have
been discussing, which the Freudians call the phallic of clitoric level, depending on the congenital sex in
question. Even earlier than this we see in tots a deplorable yen for throwing and breaking things, and hostile
acts reminiscent of the proverbial deportment of cavemen. Indeed, it would seem a difficult choice most of
the time to decide which meaning of the term housebroken is most in evidence at any moment. Puppeteered
by Mars, the little angels are virtually little devils in thought and deed, and were they not constantly super-
vised by patient, frayed parents, would not just raise Cain but would mimic that symbolic figure who per-
sonifies the function of Mars in the Genesis allegory.
Apparently some recourse to the mystical interpretation of the early chapters of the Bible is worth
making in connection with each planet we treat from the depth point of view. Every psychoanalyst is aware
that this scriptural account is a veritable gold mine of useful psychological knowledge.
The mark of Cain is the symbol of Mars. The saga of the First Murder is a symbolic description of the
boisterous, unfeeling, even malicious Martian period in the child’s life. (None of us outgrow any of the
planetary periods in our development. Each phase is temporarily dominant, but the overall result is the
installation of traits, not their loan and then removal.) Cain, whose Hebrew name literally means acquisi-
tion, stands representative of the Martian ergie innate in every mortal soul – that homicidal streak which
we all try to hide beneath a veneer of maturity and conscience.
Here we meet a facet of Mars’ character which the average student of astrology would hardly suspect.
Mars is the key to that phenomenon called sibling jealousy. Actually a ramification of the competition
motif, the jealousy which Mars engenders is not anything like the envy motif of Jupiter which gives rise to
the emulative impulse. Jupiter emulates, copycats, and patterns himself after the moulds which insure re-
spectability in a society which feels that to be different is to be damned.
Mars, on the other hand, tries to outdo any threatening competition – to eliminate it if possible. Note,
in the Genesis allegory, that Abel was Cain’s younger brother. Infancy and childhood has its daily crises,
but one of the most acute pains of early life is inflicted by the arrival of a new baby in the family. Even
where this critical situation does not occur, the germ of Martian jealousy spawns in every young soul, as
every teacher will verify. Those who have ever had the responsibility of overseeing a group of youngsters
know only too well the explosive potential of even the slightest show of favoritism.
Nature has a definite purpose in allowing such aggressive shenanigans of temperament because she is
preparing the unfolding individual for combative competence in the great battle of life. Nature, never miss-
ing a trick, equips us all with both offensive and defensive paraphernalia. But these talents are not imbued
upon the human being in their finished form. The primitive urges must be corralled and fettered and disci-
plined. In other words, Martian power must be harnessed and directed into constructive avenues of behav-
ior. The warrior must be made into an engineer; the sword must be forged into a plowshare; Cain must be
taught that he is his brother’s keeper, not his brother’s killer. So until this transformation is well underway,
mother must keep every vulnerable object in the house out of Junior’s reach.
There is little actual difference between the sexes per se during these years of later infancy which La
Fontaine described as “an age without pity.” As the child is being conditioned by the primitive Martian
ergie, there is no evidence of sympathetic feelings or consideration for others, least of all a rival. Little
wonder is it that astrology relegates ruthlessness and cruelty to Mars, not crediting that planet with one iota
of grace or sentiment. The adult sadist is an example of the failure to divert Mars into constructive emotional
channels.

15
The Yen for Violence
The reader with an analytic mind will have no difficulty in appreciating how the beginnings of all the
things which doctrinaire astrology has classified under the rulership of Mars since time immemorial can be
easily traced to this raucous stage in the evolution of personality. Notable among these assignments is the
sporting instinct and engineering capacity (this is the building block and mechanical toy stage). Even though
education and social training cannot entirely dam up the always unruly energies of Mars, civilization has
been more successful in its efforts along this line than is apparent to vociferous moralists, by emphasizing
the importance of athletics and physical culture.
Our modern emphasis on sports is in reality an attempt to give vent to aggression vicariously. Some
time ago a psychiatrist remarked that were it not for this emphasis on sports, every city block in the nation
would average a daily murder. He made this statement, almost prophetically, back in the days before youth
and ethnicity-geared cultures in our society began to disparage athletics and physical excellence – a societal
stance that correlates with a doubling of the homicide rate in those very social groups which disavow the
value of athletic ability. (So don’t begrudge your local boys’ and girls’ clubs that extra dollar or two from
time to time.) Mars is the homicidal impulse within the human soul and it must express itself in some way,
just as every instinct must seek an outlet or become the breeder of a neurosis or something worse. Therefore,
instead of actually committing mayhem outright, the highly vocal spectator who wants to kill the umpire or
murder them bums is appeasing the Martian vent for violence which civilization has never completely sti-
fled. Watch the faces of even the Saved around you in the bleachers, how avidly delighted they are when a
player on the opposing team is zapped. Prizefight fans titillate with satisfaction that they got their money's
worth if the bout was prolonged and gory, are bitterly disappointed if not, as every promoter knows so well.
A hundred or so murders a week are feigned on the air waves of the land, to the captivation of the national
radio-video audience.
These things seem necessary at our present level in racial evolution in order to cater to the damnable
demands of the Mars which is found in every horoscope. Only in actual warfare can we perpetrate atrocities
and murder with the sanction of both officialdom and our consciences. Cruel recreations like game hunting
are other not so vicarious ways to relieve excess Martian energy. Every hunter has experienced the “thrill”
that accompanies a kill; it is not rare for a strange warm sensation in the groin to accompany the mental
excitement of stalking and shooting some a priori doomed and defenseless creature. Mars when unadulter-
ated as an influence loves and thrives on cruelty – it is the planet of sadism and Spartanism. People born
with Mars dominant have a boastful attitude toward the scars – both literal and figurative kinds – that they
have incurred while fighting their battles in life. In fact, a bandaged wound is often doted upon deliciously
by Mars types, thereby betraying the streak of algolagnia (pleasure in pain and vice versa) in their consti-
tutions. For a good example, recollect the glowing demeanor of a patched-up football player in the class-
room of a Monday morning.

Phallic Symbolism
It is amazing that it is so, but it would be even more amazing were it not so, that the literature of
astrology should list as ruled by Mars all those items and archetypes which psychiatric investigators have
found to be universal phallic symbols. Compare the usual list of Martian keywords, and the conspicuous
trend of terms in any of the familiar planetary vocabularies with this excerpt from Sigmund Freud: "All
elongated objects, sticks, tree trunks, umbrellas... all sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers and
pikes, represent the male member... All complicated machines and appliances are very probably the genitals
– as a rule the male genitals – in the description of which the symbolism of dreams is as indefatigable as
human wit. It is quite unmistakable that all weapons and tools are used as symbols for the male organ, e.g.,
ploughshare, hammer, gun, revolver, dagger, sword, etc.” Phallic symbolism is regularly encountered in
the dreams of individuals, as well as in myths and fairy tales which represent a kind of collective dream life
of the human race. A remarkable medium in which phallic symbolism attains some height of inventive

16
cleverness is found in everyday slang which employs a series of nicknames for the sex organs reading oddly
like a list of Mars keywords from the mild pen of a Llewellyn George or Alan Leo.
The superman motif we associate with Mars is a variation on the same theme, as illustrated by the
coupling of things phallic with things heroic and powerful. The Nazi use of Thor’s hammer as the official
brand of the super race bears the same psychic content, actually, as the hammer and sickle decal of Bolshe-
vism. The western cowboy with his wondrous pistol in movie fare is but a modern adaptation of the phallic
hero archetype discernible to psychoanalysts in so many interesting, unsuspected ways. The fabulous knight
in shining armor with his sword or jousting lance also comes to mind. The same subconscious pattern giving
rise to such symbols has sponsored in the past the creation of numerous gods of virility and generation,
most noteworthy of which in Western civilization was Priapus. An idol of Priapus was a common household
knickknack in Roman times, in the form of the sculptured head of a heavily-wattled rooster or as the statue
of a satyr wrestling with a serpent growing out of his own torso. Sidelight: Jupiter is the votive planet, and
a compound of Jupiter’s and Mars’ basic keywords becomes phallic worship. Interesting, that statistical
studies establish Jupiter aspects to natal Mars as among the most frequent transits at the time of weddings
and, of course, honeymoons. (A burning candle, taper and joss stick are universally representative of sac-
ramental Mars-Jupiter generative power.)
The very symbol of the planet Mars used by astrologers is of phallic origin. In modern astrological
artwork, the commonest motif of Mars is, quite appropriately, a Roman warrior epitomizing the ancient war
god himself. Among the most curious relics of imperial Roman times, still found at sites of army barracks
and encampments, are hardened clay impressions of actual male genitalia that strikingly replicate the old
Mars symbol and reveal its obvious origin. Historians believe that these phallic stones represent permanent
records of the outcome of popular dimensional competitions among the men, and were widely used as
military calling cards left behind as tokens of Roman virility wherever armies visited. In the light of such
historical items it would seem that even in those days the spear and shield emblem was understood to be a
euphemistic device. Biologists nowadays employ this same symbol to identify maleness or the masculine
gender, using the standard symbol of Venus for the feminine. This is quite appropriate from the philological
standpoint, too, since the Hebrew word for male means borer or piercer while the word for female means a
hollow. Similarly, in literature the distaff side refers to the females and the spear side to the males of a
family or community. The weapon motif of Mars is further intimated in the origin of the word sex itself,
which stems from the Latin secare, meaning to cut.

The Flame of Vitality

The fire motif so frequently tied in with Mars is another connotation of its relationship to sexuality and
gives rise to those expressions in our speech which employ heat as a euphemism for passion (again, slang
is so revealing). To use Freudian language. Mars is the id-phase of the libido (the animal soul of the occult-
ists) as distinct from the libido’s ego phase (the divine soul) which blossoms out of Venus – in next month’s
installment. The connection between sex and violence derives also from that between the fieriness of Mars
and the symbol of Hell fire. Mars literally raises Hell in the world because Mars itself is the purgatory of
every psyche, the combustion chamber of every horoscope. The mystical I.N.R.I. of the crucifix, another
Mars symbol, reveals the cosmic purpose of the fiery planet: Ignes Natura Renovatura Integra, all nature
is renewed through fire.
Horoscopically, Mars represents your aggressiveness, your love of action and adventure, your tendency
toward cruelty – everyone has his or her brutal, merciless moments – and your virility. The best place to
have Mars in the horoscope, generally speaking, is in a middleground house, for when Mars is angular the
opportunistic thirst tends to overwhelm those more sensitive yearnings which make for spiritual enrichment
of the life. Likewise, with Mars unduly weak, too little spit and vinegar in the makeup can mean missing
out on much of the excitement life offers the courageous. A cadent planet, contrary to popular impression,
can be dangerous if it results in one’s feeling a painful shortcoming in the personality so that compensations
are sought. Too often a man will react to “a shortage of Mars” in his constitution by harboring disastrous

17
compensatory hankerings. (The adjectives meek and mild-mannered are common fare in newspaper de-
scriptions of sex crime arrestees.)

The Martian Personality

To the human being in whom Mars is the most conspicuous planetary ergie, Tennyson’s comment that
“all nature is red in claw and fang” seems like a pretty accurate picture of the real state of affairs. Though
the civilizing processes of education and social pressures succeed in smoke-screening their cynicism, the
Mars dominated soul unconsciously takes for granted that the world is a hostile place and that life is, despite
the floss and gloss, a bitter struggle against others. In the modern world it is no longer easy to liquidate
one’s opponents so the againstness which Mars naturally fosters finds a substitute outlet in the emotional
need to control others. Law-enforcement officers are conspicuous Mars personifications.
Most of us know from experience that a close association with a Mars dominated person is more of a
military occupation of our lives than a mutually elevating friendship. The hero-worshipping sidekick of the
exemplary athlete typifies the onesidedness of a relationship with a true Martian type, as does the kowtow-
ing Gal Friday of every iron-willed career woman. Sycophant status, incidentally, is a very desirable com-
pensation for those with a problematical weak Mars, and can be very profitable psychologically, so this is
not intended as a sideswiping criticism. While the exact form which the drive to control will take depends
upon circumstances as a whole, control others he or she will, by fair means or foul, if this can be at all
managed.
Modern folklore has it that opposites tend to attract, but scientific studies show that this is not true
except in the cases of personalities possessed of traits which astrologers readily identify as Martian. The
Mars dominated woman will marry a man she knows she can control as a matron can control a little boy,
and in many cases the folklore caricature of the Amazonian bride with her Milquetoast groom does have
the ring of observable truth. However, because caricatures are often deceiving, it is more accurate to say
that, appearances to the contrary, the Martian woman never, but never, will voluntarily marry a man who
is really her superior, for no Martian can brook being outsmarted even in trivial matters let alone the crucial
ones like matrimony. By hook or by crook a strongly Martian wife will wear the pants in the family, for
every female with Mars overly powerful at birth must rule the roost, else the battle will be on. The Mars
dominated male will likewise select for wife only the type of woman who will be subservient to his soldierly
will. Here again appearances may be deceiving—the rugged Mars type may whistle at a buxom, extroverted
girl who can hold her own in a man’s world, but the ear into which he finally bills and coos belongs to quite
another type.
Opportunism is the one word best describing the most all-encompassing trait found in primitive Mar-
tians, for their normal attitudes toward everything are geared to the motive of what they can get out of it
(Cain as acquisition, again). In this way, they are considered realists and as workers are usually very effi-
cient, normally winning high ratings for such traits as initiative, leadership and perseverance. But you must
never praise somebody else too highly in his or her presence, lest you provoke a jealous retaliation, because
everyone endowed by Mars has a peculiarly sensitive hangover of sibling jealousy which is the core of most
of their social troubles in life. Mars simply will not be outdone – he will not hand out compliments unless
there is something to be gained by doing so. The rest of the time, except when he is crowing, the primitive
type is habitually belittling others. Abstract sentiments and noble ideals strike the thoroughbred Martian as
quite ridiculous, but he usually pays lip service to the standard platitudes because he knows this practice
helps him to get ahead in the world.
The phallus awareness of the Martian male is never more obvious than in the ever-ready-to-pounce
jealousy he feels toward other men where the subject of women is concerned. As though there were a built-
in tape recorder in his forebrain endlessly repeating “Thou art a real man!” throughout life, he lowers the
bars of his psychic hostility to other men only when outside voices seem to agree with the inner one. Still,
even when another man is showing admiration or warmly praising him, our Martian’s subconscious gun-
wales are kept open just in case the guy is really trying to con him. Norman Mailer’s fictional (?) character

18
Sergeant Croft in The Naked and The Dead is perhaps the truest profile of the Mars-driven male in modern
literature.
Physically the Mars dominated person has a conspicuous energy-radiating characteristic that is manifest
in an assertiveness of posture and movement of limbs, an unabashed directness of manner, and a predilec-
tion toward youthful goals and activities. Often he seems to be a few years older than he really is (example:
the high school athlete usually seems more mature than his average classmate). Another earmark is the aura
of general noisiness that seems to enshroud him at all times – he breathes and grunts loudly, speaks with
forceful and throaty voice, is a natural snorer, never thinks to muffle the blast when he blows his nose,
relieves himself of gas with thoughtless gusto, can always be heard well in advance approaching down a
corridor, and when he is in the bathroom the whole house knows it. His adrenals are hyperactive, hence his
blood pressure tends to be higher than the norm; best depart as quickly as you can when veins begin to
stand out on a reddening forehead. In fact, oversize blood vessels are more a mark of the Mars physique
than muscles are.
The Saturnian needs solitude when he is anguished and the Jupiterian has a need for companionship
when disturbed, but the Martian reacts to personal trouble with action – if not, pow right in the kisser, or
breaking things, slamming the door, hiking around the block, gunning the engine and driving off, and the
like. As might be expected, though, most of his troubles are self-incurred, for a scion of the celestial war-
monger thrives on commotion and dearly loves a battle, be it of wits or wills. Society has always fought
fire with fire, which is why most police officers were cast in the same die, at birth, as their officially intended
prey. Ulcers, appendicitis and boils are the familiar afflictions. It is understandable, therefore, why peptic
ulcers are the occupational disease of politicians, high-pressure salesmen, hard-driven businessmen, cab
drivers and locomotive engineers! Aside from his spiritual vacuum, the saddest lack in the makeup of the
typical Martian is the dullness of his sense of humor, if not its complete absence. It seems that traditional
Martians are able to break out into sincere laughter only in the exultation of victory – or when somebody
falls down the stairs. Martian mirth is without true merriment.

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 UNMASKING VENUS
At this point, taking leave of Mars and taking on Venus in our planet by planet considerations, we are
reminded of a meaty statement by Sigmund Freud in the closing years of his life: “...what can the heavenly
bodies have to do with the question whether one man loves another or kills him? Nevertheless it touches
on a great psychological truth.”
The planet Venus, as symbolic of a period in childhood development, follows closely on the heels of
the ergie of Mars in the parade of forces which build the human personality. Those readers with a knowledge
of the behavioral theory of stages in infancy will have no difficulty connecting Venus with what Freudians
call “the narcistic period” – a one or two year period right after the phallic period so clearly identifiable as
Martian. That Freud’s idea is roughly, if not entirely, the truth is backed up soundly by the truths of astrol-
ogy. Persons born under a dominant Jupiter undergo a fixation in the Jupiterian phase of infancy. Those
whose horoscopes are overlorded by Mars inevitably experience a fixation during the Martian period, and
likewise with all the other planets.
The narcistic stage, which represents the first stirrings of the Venus ergie in life, occurs in our modern
civilization around the age of four or five years when the child, like the mythical youth Narcissus, becomes
enamored of itself in an esoteric sense. The previous periods, notice, represent what might be called explo-
rations of the environment, meeting challenges and conditions from the outside. At the Venusian level it is
as though the psyche pauses for a while in its grapplings with the surrounding world and turns back visually
on itself, now asking “Who am I?” instead of “What’s going on, anyway?” In the child-care manuals the
stage is described as the acme of the fairy tale, when rabbits lay colored eggs, when animals have every
human attribute and when even wallpaper unveils a world of marvels. What adults usually fail to realize is
that the child is identifying itself with the characters of this romantic existence, with the talking pony and
the inch-high princess. Everybody is wafted through some stratum of this Venusian atmosphere, and those
whose natal Venuses are strong will carry into adulthood a nostalgia for the wonderful.

“Through The Looking Glass”

The prime symbolism of Venus coincides quite perfectly with the level called narcistic by psycholo-
gists. The choice of a mirror is no doubt the most appropriate symbol for the significance of Venus that
could be invented. The founder of psychoanalysis coined the term narcissism (shortened by Brill to narcism)
independently of any astrological purpose, to our knowledge. The aptness of his choice, in the light of
astropsychology, is stunning to the intellect. A flower bearing thereafter his name bloomed on the spot
where the youth Narcissus pined away for love of his own reflection in the pool. In this melancholic myth
we see three of the commonest symbol motifs of Venus: love, mirror and flower.
Semantics, the science of language and meanings, sheds light on the understanding of all the planetary
symbols. A pointed example in regard to Venus is the English use of the word “like” as having to do with
both resemblance and fondness. The word barbarian, by contrast, merely means stranger (the dissimilar).
Nature’s purpose in ordering the narcistic stage is evidently to guarantee the continuance of the species
by counterbalancing the pressures of Mars which, if left to play out unchecked, would surely have brought
about world-wide genocide long before the advent of Cro-Magnon. Mars may hog the headlines of history
but there is an equal amount of Venusian force at work in the world, generating love and gaiety, else we
would not be here to talk about it. As the average individual grows toward maturity, the emotions he first
felt during the narcistic age become transmuted gradually into the instinct for friendship, sentimentality,
appreciation of beauty, reciprocity both social and personal – in short, all the nice things the books have to

20
say about Venus at its best. Only a few do not make the grade and these are the misanthropes among us. As
Dr. Lauretta Bender once put it, the real puzzler for social workers nowadays is why so many of our children
are not delinquents. We have Venus to thank for your youngsters’ “amazing capacity to tolerate bad parents,
poor teachers, dreadful homes and communities.”
The Venusian stage, then, is the cosmically ordained take-off station for the kind of emotions and tem-
pers which make social interchange possible. To the Mars within our souls every other human being repre-
sents a threat, a potential enemy. But to the Venus within us, another human being represents a possibility,
a potential friend.
The best psychiatric proof of the nature and importance of the narcistic stage lies in the fact that research
has traced the beginnings of most cases of homoeroticism to a fixation at the Venus level. The adult homo-
sexual is clearly pursuing a love object which duplicates the original first-love image engrammed into his
or her unconscious by the force of the fixation.1 The heterosexual person has survived the narcistic period
without such a psychic mishap. The progressed chart and solar returns of the fourth and fifth years of life
are therefore crucial ones in connection with an individual’s psychosexual development. The turning of the
libido toward the self, during the Venus period, is the first step toward conditioning the libido which must
in later life be turned outward upon the world proper. Your natal Venus symbolizes your quest for fulfill-
ment of self in love, your search for the object of your affections. The mirror motif is obvious in the syno-
nym “soul image.”

Lust Versus Love

In the standard diction of astrology Venus is the significator of love, pleasure, artistry, beauty, friend-
ship, marriage and pleasing sensations such as from perfume or other erotic stimuli. The winning art of
perfumery is actually an evolutionary throwback. Most perfume bases, interestingly enough, are extracts
from the sex glands of plants and animals. Ages ago, before pithecanthropus walked erect, evolving man
grunted something that meant, “How nice she smells!” whereas his upright descendants now say “How nice
she looks!” and if she happens to be too fragrant at the moment she is apt to be classed as a strumpet.
Venus seems perennially associated with sex, but Venus is not necessary to the act of procreation which
is the office of Mars. However, Venus aids and abets this responsibility of all living things with few com-
plaints from any quarter. Venus signifies matrimony in the sense of the affection and cohesion of two people
but has nothing to do directly with reproduction other than to make it more probable through sponsoring
romantic overtures. A wholly companionate marriage is actually Venusian but so is the union of two con-
firmed hedonists. It is difficult to separate the functions of Mars and Venus with any conciseness because
this polar pair of planets symbolizes the proverbial pain-pleasure motif in life.
As in that high point of mythicomedy, where sneaky Vulcan2 trapped the illicit lovers Mars and Venus
in a fine wire mesh, so in everyday life are these planetary forces embarrassingly intertwined. “The path of
true love never runs smoothly” is a disguised maxim illustrating the problem. By itself Venus stands eter-
nally symbolic of true love, harmony, peace and tenderness and certainly could function smoothly were it
not for the involvement of Mars who rears its ugly head. But Nature is always generously indulgent and all
but a few malcontents agree that Nature’s arrangement in this department of life is just dandy.
Some may think us a little quaint and archaic for calling Mars the planet of lust and Venus the planet
of love, and a few can always be heard to insist that love and sexual attraction cannot exist independently.
These emotional cynics should think back to their greener years when, if they were fairly normal, they were
at times drunk from the dregs of their own infatuations and yet unaware of physical ramifications. It is not
uncommon to be deeply in love without giving thought to bodily congress, the cherished union being purely
mystical. One in this condition dwells worshipfully on the abstract attributes and virtues of the beloved,
dreams up sirupy poetry to extol the beloved’s charms and usually deports himself in the manner of a saintly

1
This, the state of knowledge in the mid-1950s, has long been superseded by better research. – JAE
2
Of interest for this myth: Ancient Roman astrologers regarded Vulcan as the patron deity of Libra. – JAE

21
idolater rather than seducer. Puppy love and immature infatuations are in reality purer forms of that intan-
gible, true love, than what is familiarly called the real thing, because idolatrous devotion is the expression
of Venus within the soul free from spoilage by Mars. Consummation of any expression of love, however,
does require the participation of the Martian ergie as a kind of catalytic agent. It was Dr. Bertram D. Lewin
who said something to the effect that in true love, as contrasted with pure sexual desire, the body as a whole
becomes an erogenous zone, so that the mere touch of hands and the awareness of nearness alone suffice to
delight the amorous soul.
Venus yearns to love and be loved; it is Mars who yearns to have and to hold. There is a big difference
between the gentility of Venus and the genitality of Mars. Venus is the chemistry of love; Mars is the
physics of sex. Horoscopically, your natal Venus represents what a doctor would call your “free, floating
libido” – the capacity to love of any kind. Mars in its function as acquisitor uniformly strives to attach the
libido to any object which will satisfy the physical. But Venus-elected love objects need not be carnal ones;
Venusian love is easily as filial as romantic, and can be as artistic as it can be personal. Hence, Venus makes
possible the love of children generally, of pets, of artistic creations, of natural beauty such as scenery and
flowers, of favorite colors, and what have you in the way of fondnesses.
Some of the most impressive astrological statistics are those which prove that transiting Venus is cus-
tomarily in the foreground of the lunar returns of women for the event of childbirth. The philosopher may
view procreation sarcastically, “With the dew of eternity on her forehead, motherhood perpetuates the sav-
age brood,” but the typical parturition lunar shows that the universe holds quite a different attitude toward
the ordeal!

Babying and Mothering

As proved by the statistics of parturition, child-bearing is primarily a Venus matter. Carry this a step
farther, or rather deeper, and we see that “babying” in the everyday sense of doting is equally of and through
Venusian influence. Oohing tenderly over an infant is hardly different from awing fondly over a puppy.
Even that word puppy is something to conjure with as a Venusism, for in actuality it means “child
substitute.” That’s why childless adults are more apt to be animal lovers and pet owners than others, and
why an adopted dog or cat becomes virtually “like one of the family” in most happy households, nearly on
a par with the human offspring themselves. In fact, etymology finds a direct common denominator between
the three words, puppy, doll and child. Latin puppis is doll and pupus is child, from whence such words as
the English puppet (animated doll), German Puppe (doll), Dutch pop (doll), and French le poupard (literally
babe in arms) are derived.
It is certainly the shortest of steps to find the psychological link with sculpture, especially statuary of
human forms. This urge to magically imbue infant-substitutes with life is just another adaptation assumed
by the planetary ergie in our souls which can go gaga over a litter of kittens and relishes even pictures of
babies. The Pygmalion and Pinocchio stories, like those of Oz and Pooh Corner, are Venus myths keyed to
the phenomenon of corning to life through the alchemy of believing. Office lore in the slick-magazine field
has it that the two cover themes with most sales appeal are pictures of infants or winsome animals. Surely
there is no need to suspect having lost a few of your marbles if some piece of sculpture or painting seems
to take on an intimate living quality which you inwardly sense as one facet of your capacity to love. You
are responding wholesomely and creatively to the Venusian ergie in your psychic makeup.
It is no accident that the commonest word in America for children is “kids,” and that affectionate nick-
names for love partners draw habitually upon the same motif (kitten, lamb, chick, duckie, and just plain
“baby”). As for idolatry or eye-dollatry (Latin idolum and Greek eidolon, meaning image, form, apparition),
one can easily see why religious idols such as of Catholic saints, or Buddhist incense burners, totem carv-
ings and voodoo effigies, have such magnetic impact on the people to whom they bear significance. All
such psychological devices originate from the same ergie of the soul that in astrology is symbolized by the
planet Venus. Rites are of Jupiter or Neptune inspiration, but the special emotional charge one has toward

22
an object of veneration is of Venus. If it is dear, a thing is of the planet of love. If it is attractive, it is of the
planet of beauty. If it is companionable, it is of the planet of friendship.
Yet another Venusian sidelight is contributed by no less surprising a source than Madison Avenue. It
took the probings of advertising specialists (in the field of motivation research) to unearth a remarkable
parallel: A cake is the chief birthday symbol, and cake-baking the most pleasurable chore in the average
woman’s homemaking existence, because they subconsciously represent what is called “pregnancy activ-
ity.” Women shoppers, it was found, instinctively spurned the cake mixes on the market which required
only the adding of water, choosing the mixes to which they have to add eggs and milk and otherwise fuss
over. The ad agencies and mix manufacturers wanted to know why, and the “depth detectives” soon came
up with the solution, having noted that an extensive folklore had always associated female functions with
the production of goodies, in jokes, fairy tales and endless superstitions.
There is more to turning children into gingerbread and vice versa than just a bedtime story. An old-
wives-tale test of failure to conceive was to bake a cake to see if it fell or not; one of the many superstitions
surrounding the subject of menstruation is that cake-falling is a sign of that time of the month. Another old
bridal tradition holds that a young wife cannot become pregnant until she learns to bake a cake successfully,
and so on. The actual process of cake-making, from the original beating of the mixture of eggs (procreation
symbols themselves), milk (maternal symbol), shortening and other ingredients, to the steady rise of the
loaf in the oven (ovum chamber) until ready for removal, is a psychic enactment of the whole coitus-to-
cradle saga. The decorating of the cake (its layette, figuratively) and then its proud presentation to the family
are high points of the drama. “Sweet!” is no doubt the commonest adjective in people’s baby-admiring
vocabularies, while the threat to eat it up is probably the most endearing thing a new mother can say to her
darling creation.
It is plain to the astrologer that parturition is a Venusian matter. Likewise gardening, which is also
classed by analysts as a symbolic “pregnancy activity” notably popular among those past the age or oppor-
tunity of reproduction. The planting and growing of living things with loving care, and then to eat or proudly
display the results, fill a psychological need that has its roots in the procreative urge. So you see that there
is a whole world of rich, purposeful information to be explored in the fusing of astrology with the deeper
psychologies. There is so much more to understanding Venus’ function in our lives than can be appreciated
by superficial application of the keywords love, art and beauty, or merely consigning that planet to rulership
of things social and romantic.

Vanity Fair and Unfair

It is the Venus within our souls which is conscious of appearance, hence the elementary tenet that Venus
rules vanity and beautification. The reader who follows his chart is surely aware of his commonplace reac-
tion to, say, a Venus-Saturn influence, how it coincides with those twinges of anxiety one feels at the dis-
covery of a new wrinkle, a fleck of dandruff or a complexion blemish upon glancing in a mirror. Fetish is
another Venus keyword – we all have our fetishes, those factors which have special pleasurable stimulus
for us and which govern our selection of romantic and marital partners. In fact, one’s fetishes, be they
abstract or material, are the chief governors of one’s psychosexual activities.
On the psychiatric side we see Venus as symbolic of love substitutes as well as their prototypes, for
Venus is the sweets motif both literally and figuratively. Sweetheart, honey, cookie, sugar, lollypop, and
the like, are typical examples of the romantic vernacular which psychologically betrays the nature of a most
common type of love-displacement, that of a craving for candy. Obvious, too, is the unconscious throwback
to the Venus period of childhood, that of magical animation, implied in such endearing words as lambikins,
babydoll and poopsy. And, of course, the term petting is something to conjure with in this connection!
Another more direct love-displacement is emotional thralldom to a make-believe Master, a Prince
Charming yet to come, or even Christ Himself whose embrace and personal attention are spiritually expe-
rienced daily by the devotee. Read lyrics of old gospel hymns nonreligiously and you have pure erotic
poetry. What these considerations boil down to is that Venus in horoscopy symbolizes the Pygmalion-

23
Galatea theme wherein the created object is so adored that it comes to life through the magic which is love
itself. In this regard Venus may be thought of as “the breath of life” itself, calling to mind the ancient
Egyptian ankh symbol for both soul and breath.

Yonic Symbolism
Just as we learned that phallic symbolism around the world and throughout history is of Martian deri-
vation, so it becomes plain that there is a remarkable relationship between the object and subjects said to
be ruled by Venus in the traditions of astrology and what psychologists have found to be standard yonic
symbols. Yonic symbols feature the attribute of concavity in the same way that phallic symbols are char-
acterized by convexity. The most frequently met yonic symbol in myth, dream and literature, is the flower,
exemplified by the rose in the Occident and the lotus in the Orient. The mystical crucified rose leaves no
doubt as to its meaning.
Freud taught that hollow objects, examples of which range all the way from vanity boxes and garages
to beehives and keyholes, generally signify the female genitalia “in the language of dreams.” The mirror
which symbolizes Venus proper is, in truth, something one looks into. In the framework of cultural mores
at least, Mars is the masculine principle and Venus is the feminine. Hence, the expressions of Venus com-
plementary to those of Mars. Mars signifies aggression, so Venus represents surrender. Other dichotomies
are war and peace, rough and smooth, bold and tractable, active and passive, hard and soft, and so on. One
all-embracing keyword for Venus in human psychology is receptivity. Physiologically, the body’s hormone
balance is the primary Venus function.

The Liebestod Mystery

Liebestod is a German word often translated “death through love” although it literally means the “love
death.” The word is most familiar as the title of the melodious but frenzied finale of the opera Tristan und
Isolde during which the princess succeeds in willing herself to die, dropping dead over the corpse of her
lover. The majority of opera plots revolve around this same theme in endless variations of the fatal love
idea. This strange association of love with death, so beautifully captured in opera and in the tale of Romeo
and Juliet, has been called by psychologists “the Liebestod mystery.” It is one of the most powerful and
ever-present complexes in human beings but, strangely, is perhaps the most ignored phenomenon in modern
psychology. Astrologers too seldom sense its significance and often fail to realize its imminence, but the
fact remains that the planet Venus cannot be completely understood until its Liebestod mystery is probed
and solved.
Materialistic psychologists tend to view the Liebestod complex as a psychic throwback in physical
evolution and this no doubt is partly true. An ancient Latin adage, invariably quoted when this subject is
brought up, states that “After coitus, all animals die.” Many of the lower animals and most of the insects
do expire soon after mating in the case of males and soon after reproduction in the case of females. Indeed,
some life forms are devoured immediately after their purpose is served and among others the very process
of seeding is a killing one. The phenomenon is said to account for an instinct for death after copulation in
higher animals that causes the usual sleepiness and somewhat remorseful letdown humans experience. As-
trology shows, however, that it goes deeper than this, that the Liebestod complex is as basic a psychic drive
arising from Venus within as the expansive urge which stems from Jupiter or the autonomous from Saturn.
It is mostly in poetry and music that we find the love-death idea exploited and dramatized, yet the
complex is in no way restricted to the arts. The very basis of the world’s great religions is a projection of
the symbol. The crucifixion in fact was a love death, for the gospel’s passion story is history’s greatest
Liebestod. Christians sense no conflict over the fact that the token of their religion which is flaunted on
steeples in every city, hanging on bedroom walls and dangling from millions of necklaces, is a device of
death and symbolic of the world’s most tragic execution. The death scene of the cross has an eternal emo-
tional impact; why it should be so stems from the heart of the Liebestod mystery, that heart being the Venus
in our souls.

24
 Most of us, at some time or other, have been surprised to find ourselves on the verge of tears as we
have viewed the numinous beauty of some scenic wonder. If you have ever visited the Grand Canyon, for
instance, you may well remember the strange admixture of sorrow and appreciation you felt as you swept
your gaze over a vista no words can ever aptly describe. Have you ever pondered why the human soul is so
constituted that sorrow and happiness are twin emotions? Crying for happiness is not a rare experience for
many people, particularly Venusians.
Take the traditional Valentine’s Day symbol, that of a stabbed heart, and you have startling evidence
of the forceful yet disguised and therefore not usually realized presence of the Liebestod complex in people.
Surely, we sense nothing ridiculous in the fact that our symbol for personal love is also a kind of hieroglyph
for murder. It is almost needless to point out that this symbol is clearly a uniting of both phallic and yonic
figures. The most popular tattoo is a heart run through with a dagger or arrow and labeled with the name of
a sweetheart or “Mother.” Another Liebestod oddity: Flowers are invariably the decorative motifs at both
weddings and funerals and the formal ceremonies are much the same for both occasions. Even plainer is
the everyday association of sexual love with both tragedy and bliss, cruelty and desire, pain and pleasure,
etc. Then there are newsy incidents in the world about us from time to time which remind us of the inter-
twining of love and death. The threat of suicide if love is spurned is heard too frequently to be of purely
psychopathic origin! According to criminologists it is not rare for a murderer to confess committing the
black deed with such bizarre statements as, “I loved her so much I killed her,” or “She was too beautiful to
live.” Such evidence for the power of this factor in human emotions is inexhaustible.
When the student realizes that Venus is the mirror of the soul, the peculiar role that Venus plays in
connection with sadness will not seem like such a paradox in the astrological doctrine. Experience shows
that aspects involving Venus often coincide with hours and days when circumstances create an emotional
state akin to the blues. In many observed instances the deaths of loved ones have synchronized with matur-
ing Venus aspects which are not considered unfavorable in standard astrology. It is also noteworthy how
frequently one gets a sentimental streak during the hours when transiting Moon is touching off one's natal
Venus. One is often touched deeply, with misting of eye and tugging of heartstring, when Venus makes a
major aspect to the natal Sun. Persons who are undergoing Venusian aspects at the time they've had one
too many are safe bets for a crying jag during a backwash of sentimental recollections.
A word is in order about the misallocation of the faculty of sympathy in popular astrology. Sympathy
is commonly relegated to Jupiter and we cannot question but what this is a correct consignment in the sense
of philanthropy. But heartfelt sympathy, ranging in sort from genuine social compassion to anguish in be-
half of someone also must come under the aegis of Venus if astrological symbolism is to be consistent. The
feeling of brotherhood in the philosophical sense is Venusian. It is Venus within us, not Jupiter, which
moves us to really care about the underprivileged or to ire over apartheid, or inhumane treatment of under-
lings and animals. In order to appreciate this fact more fully, the interested reader would benefit by studying
the subject of sublimation; it will become clear that all the constructive activities of sublimation are Venu-
sian, such as art and social work.

The Venusian Personality

Receptivity is the one universal trait possessed by all those people whose horoscopes are so arranged
that Venus is the dominant influence. The Venusian is like a living sponge, absorbing every passing condi-
tion of his or her environment, reacting with exaggerated pleasure to the pleasant and with painful recoil in
the face of the unpleasant.
Every fiber and mental sinew of the Venusian’s being is oriented to life in the flesh, but he may never
be aware of this unconquerable striving to be aware of this vital realities. This fact may seem contradictory
at first, that the Venus-ruled soul which revels in the enchanted world of an operetta and gets lost in tender
preoccupation during a staging of Peter Pan is nonetheless more geared to literalness than is any other
planetary type (including the Uranian). The love of childish escapism is due directly to the fact that Venu-
sians have a strong psychic regression back to the Venus-symbolized period discussed earlier. Notice the

25
handwriting of the true Vcnusian: it is starkly simple and tidy and not curlequcd. despite what the textbooks
suggest. Read the titles of the books on his shelf, noting the absence of romantic drivel and the emphasis
on socially significant themes. He can stroll through an exhibition of modern art agog with delight at what
he sees, but everything coming off his own easel is realistic.
Colorful and gala things elevate his morale, but there is often a noticeable lack of jewelry and artificial
body adornment, strange as it may seem to those who prefer an astrology made up of stereotypes to an
astrology based on observation. But the Venusian is a person born with an instinct to solve the riddle of his
own existence, to understand what he is and why (the psychic basis of the mirror motif). This is why Venus
is the planet of True Religion as contrasted with the nominal religion and hierarchic theologies of Jupiter
and the paranoid cultism of Neptune. Venus cannot abide sectarianism, either religious or political.
It is this searching instinct, this lifelong yen to find one’s self, that causes the Venusian to accept Nature
for what it is. The Venus-driven soul takes natural things, like toilet activities and human frailty, in stride.
They are sometimes alarmingly frank and outspoken and this aura of naturalness about things (a) often gets
them fired from jobs and (b) makes them natural confessors and confidants of others. The historical philos-
opher Oswald Spengler classified psychological types of people in terms of cultural patterns of whole civ-
ilizations, especially in view of their art forms which he used to symbolize mental orientations. By way of
example, the Magian soul reflects the spiritual backdrop of Egyptian and Arabian artistic trends, with their
woodenly posed figures and unnatural straightness of body line, not to mention the ugly compounding of
animal with human parts. We mention this mainly because, if anything, the truly Vcnusian type can be
referred to as Spengler’s “Apollonian soul,” so named as it is oriented to the ancient Greek appreciation of
the human form.
The posture of the Venusian male or female is readily identifiable because these people are automati-
cally form-conscious. They stand just so, he to emphasize to the world the youngish contours of the mas-
culine physique, she to represent the eternally feminine silhouette. Quietness characterizes the walking gait
and speaking voice, inoffensiveness the manner. Most obvious feature of all, however, is the acute aware-
ness of people the Venusian continually senses and, sometimes, suffers. The Venusian does not require
luxuries nor is there a real need for acceptance in the Jupiterian frame of social reference, but one environ-
mental need overshadows all others and that is the need for harmony, for an atmosphere of peace and
friendliness. When surroundings are otherwise, the Venus-oriented soul has the gift of finding solace in
memories, in communion with his anima and in simple contemplation of his loves – like a young Studs
Lonigan and his haunting love for long-gone Lucy. Cocktail bars, it seems, are modern temples of the
goddess Venus; the customer who is not swept along in a tide of camaraderie has the inevitable mirror in
which to merge dreamily.
Venusians apparently thrive on their memories and on occasion take time out to loll around in reverie.
Dr. John Dequer, in his work on the symbolism of freemasonry, assigned Venus as the regent of the Secre-
tary who is keeper of the “copper scrolls of memory.” Venus people are great souvenir collectors and often
cherish for years such items as ticket stubs, an old flame’s gum wrapper, a lock of hair, and the like. The
trait of receptivity is at the root of all these typical Vcnusisms. The Venusian simply must belong to Life
itself – not to conquer the world or to match society item for item or even to control one’s self. He identifies
himself with all things incarnate, even those he detests for sound reasons, and is often considered unpatriotic
because of his wish to see the world at peace and its peoples understanding each other. Venusians are not
born nationalists, it seems. So habitually receptive is he, he hates to see anybody lose in an amateur talent
contest even while vicariously sharing the joy of the winner. Out shopping, the Venusian is apt to buy a
thing because he takes a shine to the sales clerk, paying little attention to the merits of the merchandise.
From the cradle to his deathbed the Venusian is at the mercy of the wiles and smiles of other people.

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 NEPTUNE SEEN FROM NEW ANGLES
So far in this series we’ve been treading on fairly familiar territory. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Venus
pertain to the more obvious phases of social and personal existence, so when we scrutinized their symbols
through the lens of depth analysis we saw that they consisted of the things the average bright student had
already suspected even though the suspicions may not until now have been paraded on the printed page.
Now comes the hard part. By rights our excursion through the solar system should have started at its
very brink, with Pluto, and run through the planetary sequence to the central Sun. There is a natural signif-
icance to this order of the planets, with Pluto symbolizing the miracle of conception and the Sun, at the
opposite extreme, representing complete individuation of the human psyche. But we felt the reader would
become lost in a labyrinth of Freudian and Jungian abstractions did he not first become acquainted with our
thematic approach in connection with the more understandable planets.
Neptune is our present topic, to be followed by Uranus. This arrangement will give our series of articles
some semblance of order by observing the rule of natural planetary pairs (Saturn and Jupiter, Mars and
Venus, Neptune and Uranus, and that polar duo Pluto and Mercury). The symbolism of Neptune is probably
the most difficult of all to grasp at first if you have had no former brushes with the subject of depth psy-
chology. Moreover, it is difficult for the writer to put into simple words exactly the thoughts about Neptune
meant to be conveyed, so here’s asking that the reader will make allowances for this technical barrier.

Paradise Lost
Some intimation of Neptune’s key meaning has already filtered through in our preceding discussions
of planetary symbolism. Astrologically Pluto is the planet of firsts, of antecedents and precedents in expe-
rience. Mythologies and scriptures the world over depict the creation of the world as the arrival of order out
of chaos, usually in terms of symbols of unmistakable sexual derivation. The butterchurn formation of the
world in primitive religious concepts, the congress of aether and chaos “in the beginning,” and all the world-
egg doctrines of the mystery cults, are clearly but psychic glamorizations of the simple fact that conception
is the end result of an emotional and physical cyclone. Pluto in the unconscious symbolizes that most natural
antecedent to the intrauterine bliss which is the key symbol of Neptune, the planet of the Nirvana complex
in human beings.
No individual, no matter how full-blown and well-integrated he becomes, ever really forgets those nine
glorious months he spent in Paradise. Consequently, much of the psychic energy during one’s lifetime is
spent in futile efforts to return to this state of sheer bliss, where everything is given without even the asking,
as best one can and by any possible route. Neptune horoscopically represents both this unconscious memory
and the yearning to find again one’s Paradise Lost. The attempt is actually futile, of course, but human
beings who have found a fairly satisfying substitute for Heaven within themselves are hard to convince that
their rapport with the divine is by proxy. The fakir entranced before a mandala, the Navajo on a kick from
peyote brew, the hippie on a good acid trip, and the occultist who believes that a golden cloud invisibly
surrounds and protects him from outrageous fortune, are all unknowingly striving to reproduce that prenatal
omnipotence.
The great Spiritual Restoration which Neptune forever symbolizes in the birthchart finds no fulfillment
until death, which is psychically beheld as a “return to the womb,” as readers versed in only elementary
psychology are already aware. But the effort goes on throughout life, nevertheless, and is responsible for
all those practices, malpractices and fantastic notions which we astrologers call “typically Neptunian.” Fa-
miliar examples: narcosis, hypnosis, spiritism, Shangrila-or-bust ideologies, visions and visitations from

27
the astral plane, cultistic disciplines of various kinds, and hopeless mother complexes. Hence, in the text-
books of astrology we find Neptune given rulership over all those things which psychologists group together
as common symbols of the unconscious striving to return to that intrauterine life with mother.

The Maternal Sea

Such common symbols include the sea, the Madonna, the “silver cord,” clouds, sleep and the like. The
choice of the ocean as a primary symbol of the Nirvana complex is easy to understand, for the foetus virtu-
ally floats on the sea of amniotic fluids. For about nine months the unborn infant is rocked gently in this
dreamless, fluidic environment, aware only of the tidal sounds of mother’s respiration and heartbeat, with
only sporadic gurgles and other watery noises to break the monotony. Little wonder is it, then, that there is
a philological thread wending its way through all the basic ideas pertaining to both the Madonna and sea
motifs in psychology, e.g., St. Mary, the heavenly matrix... mare, Latin for sea... Dido, the patroness of
Phoenician mariners who worshipped her as The Virgin Of The Sea... the Oriental Kwan-Yin, “Mother of
Mercy,” always pictured on a lotus afloat in the foamy sea... Maya, the sea of illusion...
The old hymn Beautiful Isle of Somewhere is suggestive that Paradise is surrounded by the sea, while
many other standard spirituals imply that one must cross a body of water in order to reach Heaven. Similarly
telling is the Buddhist plea to “Mix me with the Wave... The Dewdrop slips into the Shining Sea!” Even
more dramatic as a disguise for the Neptunian ergie in the soul is Walt Whitman’s carol to death which
sings, “Dark mother... Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss...” In another
passage the Good Grey Poet speaks openly of “my mother, the sea.” The theological concept of salvation
is, quite obviously, a spiritual map of the route back to Edenic peace and security, and to water generally is
imputed a special redemptive significance, as witness the sacrament of baptism and that edict by Jesus in
John 3:5 over which clerics have haggled for generations.1 The waters of many rivers throughout the world,
notably India’s Ganges, are sacred to millions. Fonts of holy water are basic to many religions. Indeed, it
is possible to purchase a bottle of Ganges or Lourdes water by mail order.
The so-called aura, as a surrounding effulgence, is a psychological idea the prototype of which is the
placenta itself. There is no question that the umbilicus is the prototype of the silver cord, beloved of all
Neptunians with a flair for the occult. The association of sleep with Neptune is an almost automatic thought,
for sleep and somnic positions are symbolic reproductions of the original foetal estate. It is common
knowledge among psychologists that persons with a problematical mother complex tend to curl up while
abed in typical prenatal posture, whereas emotionally mature people generally can stretch out freely when
they slumber.
The seeming timelessness of intrauterine existence, the total lack of any kind of contrast or demarcation
(Nirvana, incidentally, means “nothingness”), gives rise to other similes which astrologers use in connec-
tion with Neptune. Hence, we continually run across such words as confusion, nebulous, obscure, mysteri-
ous, transcendental, cloudy, and the like, in written delineations involving the planet Neptune in astrological
charts. There is no thought latent in Neptune which is creative only insofar as it can produce imagery. That
is why it is said that Neptune is imaginative. What is familiarly called “the higher mind,” as a source of
inspiration for creative effort, is only too often nothing but Neptunian imaginativeness. A mind on the
defensive against fact and reality cannot be “higher.” The Neptunian ergie forever seeks comfort – not
comfort in the Jupiterian sense of the word but in the sense of spiritual supremacy like that coddled by
victims of paranoia. Jupiter requires that superiority be visible but Neptune revels in an invisible world of
beliefs, impressions, and what Spengler called Destiny-ideas.

1
“Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God.’” – JAE

28
Neptune the Harpoon
Because the Neptunian state of bliss is really but a parasitical existence, a state of complete dependence,
it is not without significance that Neptune is called the planet of victimization, of suctorial imposition by
one person on another, of deception, of mysterious intertwinings of fates and factors in life. These associa-
tions are inevitable, arising as they do from the symbolism of the placenta on which the unborn infant is
attached and from which it absorbs its nourishment. In this sense there is justification for saying that Nep-
tune feeds and thrives upon another. This stems from the vampire motif of Neptune which in another form
is the osmosis motif in astrological literature, viz., infiltration and undermining.
The choice of the trident as Neptune’s symbol in astrology is remarkably appropriate, it being a pronged
hooking device from which extrication is improbable. The hook motif is part and parcel a reflection of the
fact that Neptune is the planetary ergie of the sense of helplessness and frustration (a mnemonic throwback
to the foetal experience of the oncoming birth crisis, the bufferings from all sides and complete inability to
do anything about it). The same thing is implied when Neptune is spoken of as the planet of the jitters.
Neptune, recall, is always an active force in the solunars of arrestees and those about to undergo surgery or
walk the Last Mile.
The association of Neptune with marine life, sea food, et cetera, stems from an unconscious recognition
of this symbol by the human psyche. Freud demonstrated how that fish in dreams symbolize unborn children
(a potent observation dovetailing so nicely with the fact that Neptune “rules” Pisces), and Richard Strauss’
fantasy opera, Die Frau ohne Schatten, capitalizes on this symbol in a memorable scene wherein fish in a
kettle poignantly sing of their wish to be born of human parents. The same underlying psychical meaning
applies to our everyday application of such colloquialisms as fishy, poor fish, sucker, left hanging, and
similar phrases which represent a melding of several of these related motifs, to those situations in living
and loving which the astrologer calls Neptunian. The standard expression for dope addiction, it is interesting
to note, is hooked.
Neptune is repeatedly described as the planet of illusion and delusion. What is narcosis, actually, but a
state of false sublimity technicolored by sensations not far different from those experienced by sober oc-
cultists in trance and by Sunday morning recruits in the Bellevue alcoholic ward? Astrologers rightly say
that Neptune in the horoscope represents the native’s weakness, for no man or woman has so strong a will
as to resist an invitation to taste again the sweet fruits of Eden, no matter under what guise they are offered.
In other words, Neptune chartwise represents the point where your resistance is almost nil, where you al-
ways give in, the habits you seem never able to break and those things which have a hypnotic fascination
for you no matter how hard you try to avoid or fight them. It is a man’s Neptune which causes him to moan
that he is “always a sucker for a pretty face,” or to put up with the abuses of the shrew he married, wondering
why he can’t work up the nerve to rid himself of the hopeless situation. Things and situations in life which
refer to thralldom and captivity of any sort, be it jail, a masochistic partnership, blackmail, an unwanted
pregnancy, economic slavery, or anything else in the way of social and emotional snares, both literally and
figuratively come under Neptune.
Natal Neptune near an angle is an earmark of the horoscopes of individuals spending their lives in more
or less continuous invalidism – this does not necessarily mean physical invalidism as it can apply to emo-
tional cripples, too. A long-term infirmity of any kind which spells the native’s unavoidable reliance on
others for sustenance and protection is due to Neptune’s influence.

Mystic Unity
Statistical and objective research in recent years has proven beyond doubt that Neptune is the planetary
regent of the institution of marriage (or should we call it the “sea of matrimony”?). Perhaps the pictograph
of Neptune’s constellation – two fishes tied together at their tails – is significant in this regard.
The word used by psychiatrists to capture the gist of the mother-child relationship during gestation, and
to some diminishing degree throughout all of infancy, is anaclisis, a term signifying oneness and merging

29
of identities. When psychologists refer to either the unconscious striving to return to intrauterine bliss, or
the yen to restore the original anaclitic relationship, they are speaking of the same thing. Even the tyro in
night-school psychology class learns that the instinct to marry is to some extent a psychic hunger for self-
completion as though the psyche felt that some essential part of itself is missing that can be supplied by
marriage. “Jeder Mann tragt seine Eva in sich” – every man carries his Eve within himself. It is difficult
not to think automatically of Neptune’s harpoon motif on contemplation of the expressions wedlock and
“till death us do part.” Most lucid of all overtones in this regard is the general concept of marriage as a
oneness itself – an anaclisis, if there ever was one! “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and
flesh of my flesh... Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and
they shall be one flesh.” It all started in the Garden of Eden.
A common association of Neptune in astrological literature is with mysticism. Mysticism clearly is a
spiritual anaclisis, for the mystic enters into personal amalgamation with God through communion and
without the aid of what we call reasoning powers. On a slightly lower plane than actual mystic union with
God is the phenomenon of psychological marriage, as of the nun to her Lord and a dedicated man to his
work. Where abnormal psychology is concerned, a famous case in modern times of amatory paranoia was
the love of Adolf Hitler for Stefanie, the Austrian girl who was his first great love in life and with whom
he was unshakably convinced he had a mystic tie, a spiritual fusion amounting to legal marriage. Years
later, it turned out, Stefanie had no recollection whatever of young Adolf; she had never even noticed the
mooning, flint-eyed swain on the promenade years before where he had daily strolled near the girl to whom
he firmly regarded himself as secretly betrothed. His conviction was absolute that Stefanie completely and
passionately reciprocated his own feelings. Such is the power of Neptune, the planet ruling the only mental
aberration for which science has never found even a partial cure.
The saga unfolded in the second and third chapters of Genesis is a remarkable exposition of Neptune’s
symbolical office and function in astropsychology. In the next installment we will dwell on the motifs of
Uranus, the planet of the expulsion from Paradise and, hence, the key to the birth trauma to which psycho-
analysis ascribes considerable importance as a factor in human experience and makeup.

The Serpent in the Garden

Unreel in your minds the foremost characteristics of the people you know who were born with Neptune
conjunct an angular cusp, or what is much the same in actual practice, closely aspecting the natal Moon. In
the legend, recall, Adam was commissioned to give names to all other living things, to label succinctly all
creation as he fancied. It is often astonishing to observe how consistently those born under a prominent
Neptune are inwardly compelled to reorganize the world to suit themselves, to classify, name and pigeon-
hole not only people but processes and purposes. Invariably the individual who comes forth with another
“occult revelation” which shows yet another version of the visible and invisible universe on neatly drafted
shelves, planes and cycles, is strongly Neptunian. In the everyday world, apart from isms and osophies,
those with afflicted Neptunes are identifiable by their tireless tendency toward name calling and calumny,
and suspicions of conspiracy by others. To a Neptunian, apparently, everything simply must have an ulterior
motive and anything to which they object simply must be the work of the devil or, at least, be of sinister
design. The story line in Genesis also illustrates another trait of Neptune in the extreme: its imperviousness
to logic once a viewpoint or policy is adopted. The echo of Adam’s ready alibi and argumentative attitude
toward even his Maker has a familiar ring to readers who know from experience the futility of a reasonable
discussion of something controversial with a Neptune-dominated intellect.
For all its paradisiacal qualities, there is always the serpent to reckon with in Eden. And do not the
textbooks perennially cast Neptune in the role of the deceiver, the betrayer, the hoodwinker? Even a Sun-
sign daily guide writer will fall back on those old standbys, “beware of strangers today” and “appearances
are deceiving now,” come a Neptune aspect and shortage of fresh ideas as to what to say about it! The
Neptunian’s distrust of others, his insistence that there must be a snake in the grass somewhere, sometimes

30
reaches fantastic heights, to his own undoing. The trait is due, of course, to the inborn sense of betrayal
which is peculiarly tender in the souls of those who succumb to rather than master their natal Neptunes.
Depth psychologists see even more than this in the symbol of the serpent in the Garden. Aware that the
serpent is a universal phallic symbol of a special sort (above and beyond its Martian imagery), Carl Jung
found it figurative of what he called the Dark Brother and the Shadow in the constitution of the human
psyche. According to Jung, the formation of devils, monsters and traitors arises from reflections of arche-
types within the soul itself. The Neptune-dominated soul actually spawns its own Satans, its own conspira-
tional forces, its own destructive images, and projects them onto the world as “enemies.” Even in hypo-
chondria we see this ergie sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, for Neptune surely rules hypochon-
driasis with its invisible mists of fiendish germs and hellbent forces aimed at keeping the victim on the
hook of helplessness. Remember, Neptune rules invalidism whether it is natural or psychosomatically con-
trived.
It was in his discovery of the now notorious Oedipus complex that Freud solved the riddle of the serpent
in the Garden. Deep within the human unconscious stirs the dim memory, and despairing realization, that
the matrix must also be shared with father, hence, the special phallic overtones in the symbol. That note-
worthy passage of Genesis 3:15, which theologists significantly consider the Bible’s first promise of a
Messiah to come, has another even more startling connotation when read without religious bias and with
the eye of a trained psychologist! “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Here, obviously, is one of the
earliest mythical dramatizations of what is called the Oedipus complex, in its simplest form. The implica-
tion to our astrological minds is that Neptune often represents not only psychical incestuous tendencies for
the mother, in the Freudian sense, but psychical murderous wishes against the father – the archetypal love
triangle of which the trident is an excellent hieroglyph. Worth pondering is the fact that ambivalent love-
hate abreactions toward paternal symbols and figures are the key characteristics of paranoid behavior. Those
readers who have had occasion to study the charts of even mentally healthy people involved in stepparent
conflicts well know that Neptune is invariably the source of grief in such situations.
The fiasco of Eden is the secret behind our habit of saying that Neptune is the planet of failure, of
frustration, of persecution and of neurosis. Why else did Freud dub the Oedipus the “nuclear complex” at
the heart of most neurotic ills? The mental disease paranoia itself, which we’ve already touched upon, so
lividly Neptunian in its symptoms, is keyed directly to motives of jealousy of the father and father-surro-
gates believed dogging the patient’s heels with sinister ends in mind. Again we are reminded of Jung’s
concept of the Dark Brother with whom the Neptunized soul wrestles in the belief that he is struggling with
the darkness of somebody else's soul. The evangelical barnstormer always has an accented, afflicted natal
Neptune. The inveterate witch-hunter and subversion-detector in politics, as well as his opposite number,
the scruffy opposer of the establishment who decries any logical thinking as fascistic, can be counted on to
sport hypersensitive Neptunes.

Introjection and Projection

All the foregoing has led us now to better understanding of Neptune’s role in the life of the average
normal human being who is not a victim of his own subconscious bedevilment. Neptune’s normalcy lies in
the natural adjustment of the soul to the struggle between unconscious desire and the world of reality. The
well-balanced individual gravitates affectionately to both parents without signs of this primitive conflict,
the fires of which are banked by the arrival of accountability. The boy aspires to manhood and to ultimate
identification with the erstwhile resented father. The girl, even more easily, achieves identification with the
mother. “Fatherness” and “motherness” are Neptunian nouns of the first water. Therefore, one of the chief
functions of Neptune in practical living is that of introjection or identification as the psychologist uses those
terms. Wholesome integration of the personality is a process by which each of the planetary ergies in the
soul strikes a happy medium in its expression,

31
 Introjection is that mental phenomenon which enables us to award ourselves with the virtues of others,
and sometimes even their faults. The most frequent form of this ability is the identification of ourselves
with others, without which there could be no true understanding or unity in the world, mystical or otherwise.
A list of homely examples of this participation mystique would naturally include the emotional catharsis
we experience at a good movie or while reading a book, when we literally lose ourselves in the story, and
laugh, cry, love and swash our buckles, wholly rapt in identification with its characters.
Astrology teaches that Neptune rules dramatics and acting ability, for an actor must have a potent natal
Neptune in order to introject himself into the character he is portraying. Likewise, the sincere and convinc-
ing attorney at law! Opera’s number one maxim, “Nothing matters but the music,” has its counterpart in
the theater’s first rule, Stanislavsky’s classic “Live the role!” So here is the reason why we relegate disguise
and mimicry, too, to the planet Neptune in practical astrology. The Neptunian zealot, remember, appears to
be obsessed by the notion that “there is something behind this” – the mask and serpent motifs are often
found combined in such a manner. On a higher plane, as in the case of the mystic in tune with the Infinite,
it is permissible to refer to Neptune as the planet of what is commonly understood to be spirituality. This is
because there is no real spiritual awareness apart from the devotee’s introjection with the symbol of his
devotion, the most familiar example being “Christ-likeness.” In fact, a good rule of thumb is to think of
Neptune as the ruler of the suffix “-ness.”
In like manner, the psychological phenomenon of projection – the awarding to others of traits we our-
selves inwardly possess but consciously disown or deny – is pure Neptune at work.1 The secretly unfaithful
spouse who becomes overly suspicious of the mate’s possible infidelity is projecting guilt from within to
the outside. The superpatriot who extolls the Constitution as sacred is usually the last one to believe in the
principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. The racial bigot whose arguments rest heavily on the rapacious
sexuality of the disliked breed isn’t fooling anyone but himself where his secret erotic hankerings are con-
cerned. Similarly, an astrologer isn’t deceived by the platitudes and claims to love for peace and brother-
hood uttered by someone whose birthchart shows a cardinal luminary and malefics in the foreground. It is
in keeping with Neptune’s nature that the one great religion supposedly founded on love and mercy is the
one institution with a unique record for torturing and murdering millions of people mainly for holding
heretical reservations about all that love and mercy. What Freud said long ago still holds true: Whenever
you see an exaggerated outward attitude or practice, you can always suspect that the truth is just the opposite
at subconscious levels. What we don’t like about ourselves we project onto others. Be careful of your fa-
vorite hate-objects – they may be the shadows cast by your own soul.
A similar phenomenon, wherein conflicting trends and ideas coexist side by side in the same psyche, is
called cognitive dissonance. Neptune feels perfectly at home with these totally contradictory factors. Going
to church in the morning and then rabbit hunting in the afternoon is an example of cognitive dissonance.
Collecting weekly unemployment compensation but not seeking work, while damning welfare recipients
for bleeding the public treasury, is another. Talking glibly about the Piscean and Aquarian Ages but re-
maining a tropicalist is a particularly immediate example of the woozy disregard of logic and reality that is
Neptune’s chronic way of proceeding through life. Ditto, campaigning fervently against vivisection be-
tween bacon for breakfast and steak for lunch. If something is garishly contradictory or hypocritical, like
closing a Klan meeting with the singing of “God Bless America!”, look to the nonthinking planet Neptune
for its explanation.
There is another Neptunism worth mentioning before closing, and that is the apparent connection be-
tween Neptune and the instinct for procreation. According to psychologists, the source of the pleasure in
parenthood is also geared to projection.
The natural desire to produce children is partly an expression of the Neptunian sense of omnipotence,
in the derivative sense that Adam and Eve, Eden’s residents, are the father and mother of us all, and also of
the yen to find a kind of psychic guarantee of immortality both physically and spiritually. By externalizing

1
It is also, and I would say primarily, a lunar function; but that does not contradict the statement above. – JAE

32
part of one’s body, with the intention that it should survive the demise of the body which created it, is a
stopgap measure toward outwitting the processes of extinction. The episode of the serpent and the forbidden
fruit, after all, was a gamble with the possibility of becoming subject to death as a mortal. Later in the text
of Genesis, the father figure of Abraham won a covenant wherein his progeny, to be as numerous as the
stars of heaven and the sands of the sea, were to inherit the Promised Land.
Another overlap of motifs: When we called Neptune the sponsor of the Nirvana complex, we could just
as aptly have used the phrase “millennial complex” and conveyed much the same idea. In the wide field of
astrology we find many students strongly under Neptune who are especially enthused over the subject of
the upcoming Aquarian Age as a kind of Edenic Restoration. What is ludicrous about this is the fact that
the typical believer of that modern myth is apt to be anti the sidereal zodiac, even though the “Aquarius”
being referred to has nothing whatever to do with the tropical sign Aquarius. Such inconsistency is true to
form for the planetary ergie we’ve been discussing. But that’s Neptune for you!

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 URANUS FOR INSTANCE
Having de-hexed Neptune, our job is to remove some of the stigma from that prodigal son of the plan-
etary family, Uranus. Of all the superlatives which rightly apply to the status of Uranus in popular astrology,
“most misunderstood” probably fits as accurately as any. In the effort to clear up these vagaries for the
student and reader, however, do not expect the resulting picture to be that of a more appealing or winsome
Uranus than you have been visualizing. The inquest we have been making into astrological stereotypes in
this series of articles has been as objective an approach as the etiquette of scientific inquiry would allow,
with a minimum of moralizing. There are a thousand other articles and books available for those who insist
upon astrological study material punctuated with apology and moral evaluations of one kind or another.
Philosophize though we may, the fact remains that the morals of the universe are not those of man any
more than Mother Nature’s way of doing things is geared to any Judeo-Christian or Brahmanical or African
system of ethics and metaphysics. The task of evolving man, his spiritual challenge, is to find Ultimate
Meaning in the forces and furies which beset him.
Alas, human beings prefer to disguise rather than discover. That literary demon Philip Wylie must have
been divinely inspired when he realized that the true Original Sin must have been mankind’s insistence
upon being something extra special in creation. The denial of the instincts is at the root of every neurosis;
every psychosis is a protective measure against reality. It is difficult to think of any unpleasant or painful
phenomenon in human society which intellectual honesty could not eliminate or at least alleviate. But the
terrors and tribulations which Homo sapiens suffers will continue as long as he persists in the blasphemy
that he bears the selfsame image of the God of the universe. Wylie worded it differently but that is the gist
of his message and in provides us with a preamble to our treatment of Uranus.

The Mortal Storm

Readers who have been with us since, the beginning of this series already know how our opener will
read this time: To be born is to be expelled from the Garden of Eden. The one common denominator which
threads its way through every motif of Uranian symbolism is the birth trauma. Uranus is the planet of
progress through shock. You probably know already, only too well, that Uranus in your life is the planet of
the onslaught of reality and, as such, is the antithesis of Neptune. Neptune in our theory of psychoanalytic
astrology symbolizes the cozy and woozy state of intrauterine existence – a condition which is brought to
a hectic, yes, even terrifying end by the onset of mother’s parturition labors.
Uranus rules the birthing process, both literally and figuratively. The most typical Uranus keywords in
standard astrology are unmistakable connotations of the basic significance of this planetary ergie in the
human unconscious. Note the birth motif conspicuous in literature about Uranus via such oft repeated words
as change, revolution, estrangement, new, emancipation, liberation, outbreak, spasmodic, unexpected, sep-
aration, divorce, individual, shock, startle, electrifying, even the great outdoors and wide open spaces. The
episode of birth, of severance from mother, is the greatest crisis which the individual psyche can experience
until the transition which is death. Being born marks the moment of becoming an individual in space and
time, so astrology relegates the attribute of individuality to Uranus. Unconsciously, the ergie of Uranus is
our repressed memory of that climacteric moment, with its painful rush of air into untried lungs and shock
from exposure of nerve terminals to atmosphere and light.
In everyday life and throughout the lifetime Uranus continues to startle you, to snap you right out of
your rut of complacency, to sponsor separations and create situations where you are forced to stand alone
and rely upon your native ingenuity for survival. Note, here, the orderly fusion of the planetary symbols

34
into one another – Neptune into Uranus into Saturn... The primary symbol of Uranian influence is the ver-
itable mortal storm experienced by both mother and her tender cargo in the throes of labor. The storm
allegory is not too far-fetched in this connection, for the process of parturition is analogous to the crescend-
ing fury of a storm, starting with warning spasms and building up to a ferocious climax of lightning and
thunder, wind and rain. Astrologers have long associated atmospheric turbulence and spasmodic action with
the planet Uranus. If you like to take a walk in the rain or if a storm fascinates you with its boiling skies,
chances are the Uranus ergie in your soul – via your horoscope – is predominant, the fascination arising
from a reliving, an abreaction, of the birth trauma.
Perhaps the most familiar association of Uranus in practical astrology is with the symbolism of the
wheel. The wheel of industry and transportation, cyclic motion in general, the horoscope wheel itself, and
the occult wheel of birth and rebirth are typical Uranianisms. Coming unavoidably to mind in this connec-
tion is the ambient motif, too, for the very name Uranus means the heavens, and Urania, a feminized form
of the name, was the Muse of astronomy. The rotating celestial sphere, studded with stars across a cobalt
expanse, is surely Uranus’ most spectacular symbol, the barest lineations of which form – you guessed it –
the horoscope. The alternative standard glyph for Uranus, though it never became popular among astrolo-
gers, implies much this same idea, for it represents a clock face and hour hand. The tenth trump of the tarot
cards, depicting a wheel, is said by modern Western mystics to be the arcanum of Uranus,1 the number ten
itself suggesting the number of lunar months ensuing before the great Expulsion. The chakra (wheel in
Sanskrit) of metempsychosis is a frequent theme in occult literature, a splendid example being in The Light
Of Asia where such passages as the following are found:
Only, while turns this wheel invisible,
No pause, no peace, no staying-place can be;
Who mounts will fall, who falls may mount;
The spokes go round unceasingly!
Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels.
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
Its spokes of agony,
Its tire of tears,
Its nave of nothingness.
The psychological dovetailing of our correspondences of Uranus with revolution and nave or navel is
plain to see. The rotary function of Uranus is first dramatized by the turning of the enwombed infant prior
to its ejection, and this sensation of being turned, of undergoing rotation, is a fundamental key to the ergie
of Uranus in many unsuspected ways later in life. Mystically speaking, Uranus represents the knife wielded
by the midwife or doctor which is symbolized by the angel’s sword of Genesis 3:24 “which turned every
way,” forever barring the return to Neptune’s Paradise. The cutting of the umbilical cord by this blade is
the first step toward the realization of individuality which is the purpose of Uranus in our lives.
Among the psychic disciplines of Oriental asceticism is the ritual of contemplation of the navel; he who
through meditation solves the mystery of his own navel has conquered one of the barriers between himself
and reality. The navel is a lifelong reminder that each of us is on his own in the world, a kind of anatomical
mandala or emblem of Uranian purpose. The navel was a kind of sore spot in early Christian concepts, by
the way, for one of the bitterest controversies of church history was over the propriety of depicting Adam
and Eve, in art and sculpture, exposing that part of the anatomy. Renaissance artists may have settled the
issue, but if author Philip Wylie is anywhere near right in his suspicion of the Original Sin, the id and the
ego of each of us are still warring over the question in subconscious arenas of our being. In passing it is

1
This is true in the Church of Light’s teachings, those Tarot instructions (by Elbert Benjamine aka C.C. Zain) most
familiar to astrologers, particularly between the 1930s and 1960s.

35
worthwhile calling attention to the impressive role played by the navel in the geometry of the human phy-
sique, as per the artistic speculations of da Vinci and the occult speculations of Robert Fludd. Cyril Fagan's
reconstruction of astrology’s original scheme of physiological correspondences with the zones of a horo-
scope imbues the navel with a striking importance – on the horizon, at one of the ancient Gateway cusps.
(One can’t help surmising that another glyph for Uranus would portray a kind of gate.)

Uranus is a Benefic
Those who insist upon classifying Uranus as a malefic are like the nearsighted mouse in the animated
cartoon who lived in the city dump. He would loll for hours every day languidly enjoying the fairy land his
myopic eyes envisioned all around. The Sun glinting blurrily on tin cans transformed them into castles and
light refracted as fuzzy rainbows in the heaps of fruit rinds, rotten vegetables and debris of endless variety.
The shock of his life came when he was fitted with spectacles, as then his world of wonders and apparitions
vanished, replaced by a badlands of trash and garbage. The film’s happy ending, of course, showed him
enraptured again, his glasses broken and the magical illusions restored. Truth is seldom pretty to short-
sighted vision but has incomparable beauty all its own – a beauty that can be appreciated by the soul which
has learned that ugliness is an attitude, not a condition. It is hardly a coincidence that those fans of astrology
who most pointedly consider Uranus a malefic are decidedly Neptunian in their viewpoints and tempera-
mental makeup.
Uranus is truly a benefic because even when this planet seems to be at its worst in your life, the battering
ram it is using is the pillar of Truth. Uranus a malefic planet? Don’t you believe it. The least predictable
planet of all, true. The most exciting, yes. Certainly the most clownish. But unfavorable, no! Uranus is
essentially a benefic planet which, like the Truth it represents, may hurt while it helps, a jolt often being the
tenderest caress of which it is capable in a given situation. The philosopher Will Durant, in saying “Nothing
so educates us as a shock,” was voicing the same truth perceived by Carl Jung who wrote that “There is no
coming to individual consciousness without pain... The critical survey of himself and his fate permits a man
to recognize his individuality, but this knowledge does not come to him easily. It is gained only through the
severest shocks.”
As a footnote to Jung’s thesis, American psychiatrist Eric Fromm commented, “Hence, most men avoid
this critical survey as they would Satan himself.” Contemplate this if you are prone to think of Uranus as a
malefic influence. Reanalyze the episodes of your past which you know were of Uranian sponsorship and
see how its every mischief was really a message in masquerade, its every unkind cut a kind of surgical
blessing in the long run. This is because your natal Uranus represents your innate sense of reality, and
transiting Uranus the inexorable, unavoidable embodiment of truth – truth in turns painful or pleasant, but
always precious. The Awakener is frequently used as Uranus’ title in books and articles on the philosophy
of our science.

Broken Apron Strings

Those readers who have studied Jung’s analytical psychology can appreciate our consignment of Ura-
nus to the unconscious compulsion away from the mother in contrast to the role of Neptune as the compul-
sion to return to the matrix. The World Saviors of myth and history have much in common, as is well known
to the chagrin of sectarians, and among these factors is that of renunciation of filial ties, particularly of the
psychical bonds with the “natural mother.” This is a weighty subject and we had best not dwell at length
on its ramifications other than to cite the coincidence of Uranus with the trait of independence from intimacy
of personal relationships. The true Uranian simply is not blood-blinded, for he automatically appraises the
character and worthiness of his flesh relative with the same unclouded eye by which he measures the mettle
of a foreigner.
In your horoscope Uranus mystically represents your salvation in the sense of deliverance from self, of
being symbolically numbered among those “which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God.” At physical birth man is born into the kingdom of nature; at spiritual birth

36
he is said to be Born Again and thence enters the kingdom of God, the realm of ultimate reality in which,
incidentally, “respect for persons” is unknown. The same theme asserts itself in several of the epistles of
Paul, as in the fourth chapter of Galatians where redemption is compared to emancipation from spiritual
slavery to an earthly mother. Figurative apron strings, we take it, are symbolical projections of the umbilical
cord! Deliberate on this mystery and you will better understand the function of Uranus in this business
called living. It is rather engaging that the same analogy hints of the antagonism between Neptune and
Uranus as symbolic drives in the soul. It is a sorry truth that the Neptunian is forever persecuting the Uranian
out of fear. Messiahs have always discomfited the powers that be and science has always terrorized the
cultist.
It is well known among astrologers that Uranus identifies the status of what we might refer to as Mes-
siahship. As in all actual and would-be avatars there is a characteristic detachment from natural obligations
and earthy relationships – often a complete repudiation of lineage and citizenship in the sense of being “in
the world but not of it.” The typical Uranian has a tendency toward being so dedicated to what he believes
to be his predestined reason for having been born, he is apt to be heedless of his loved ones and careless
about himself. At times a blessing to his progress, at other times a blight on his personality, the innate trait
of impersonableness, the ability to think apart from personal equations, is the most conspicuous earmark of
the Uranus-dominated individual. To the Uranian, his boss, the Pope, the minister, the cop, the President
himself, “are, after all, just people.” When the Uranian’s key planet is afflicted at birth, it is difficult to find
anybody more arrogant and undesirable as a friend.

The Varieties of Sameness

The truth motif devolves directly from the birth symbolism we have been discussing. In popular con-
cepts Uranus is often rightly associated with nudism of either the literal or figurative sort. Nakedness (one’s
birthday clothes) is Truth’s purest simile, as evidenced by the use of such expressions as the naked truth,
bared, exposed, revealed, and the more challenging Latin phrase, in puris naturalibus. The standard glyph
used by astrologers for Uranus is of modern origin, but as any psychologist knows there is no such thing as
accidental, meaningless invention of symbols. With all due apologies to Sir William Herschel, ponder the
symbol of Uranus, observing how neatly it seems to capture the parturition crisis – the passage of the infant's
head down through the birth canal. Uranus always goes head first, especially during the height of travail.
Perhaps it is not too far-fetched to see in this symbol, by the light of what we have been discovering, a
psychological tie-in with the honesty motif, in the sense of the colloquialism, “face it!” Uranus is a planet
that cannot be inveigled or dissuaded, an influence which does not play favorites or allow itself to be
thwarted by stratagem or guile. All Uranus asks of us is that we do not run in panic but hold our ground
and look our fates squarely in the eye. Few mortals are able to do this; most of us beat a guilty retreat into
the underbrush at the approach of the Lord.
Everybody has Uranus somewhere in his horoscope and its fundamental meaning is that of reality –
reality, of course, in the pragmatic sense of the relativeness of truth. This is why astrology classifies scien-
tific thought and subjects as a whole under Uranus, especially those exacting pursuits of the mind like
mathematics and physics. Tolerating no generalities or evasions, Uranus behaves like some celestial judge
who incessantly interrupts the testimony to puncture opinion and insist only upon the facts. Little wonder
is it, then, that Uranus and Neptune are each others’ Nemesis!
But for all its matter-of-factness, Uranus is definitely not a dry, unimaginative planet because its very
essence is originality and inventiveness. While the other planets appear to speak in perennial cliches, Uranus
thrives on endless diversity, on new twists and surprising variations of plot and finale, without ever com-
promising the unchangeable core of simple verity at stake. So in astrological texts we are taught that Uranus
is the planet of originality and invention and, somewhat paradoxically, rules both the “very old and very
new.” The idea evidently is that Uranus has something ageless and unvarying to give, yet the presentation
can be wholly different and excitingly novel.

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Turning Points in Life
By no means get the impression that Uranus achieves its aims only in a turbulent atmosphere. But even
the joyous developments of life when this planet is downstage in your horoscope are characterized by sud-
denness, by the meteoric flash of discovery, by the unexpected switch in prospects and alliances. The fic-
tionlike brief encounter with someone to whom you are drawn as though by a magnet is a typical Uranian
incident. So is a plummeting to public notoriety and most of those circumstances one speaks of having
happened “out of a blue sky” or “like a bolt out of the blue” (phrasing courtesy of the ambient motif).
Uranian aspects will also be found at work when one chances to learn something surprising about his family
tree, or experiences the shattering of a legend in his way of thinking, or enjoys moments of amazement at
his own spontaneous cleverness. An experience referred to as a thrill usually turns out to have been due to
Uranus.
Every major Uranian action in your existence, no matter how unseemly the circumstances by the stand-
ards of what you should like them to be, affords you with a chance to become a “new person,”' to get “a
new lease on life.” The birth motif suggests that every Uranian siege is a chance for psychological renewal,
for being born again. In either progressions or transits, a Uranian aspect may be thought of as a turning
point on the roadmap of living. Conversion itself, an interesting word here because it means turning around,
whether religious or political, or other type, is certainly a Uranian phenomenon.
The decision to resign from a job long held, or to apply for divorce, or to pull up stakes and move
elsewhere, are volitions traceable to Uranus. Similarly, the turning over of a new leaf with the dawn of a
new realization about oneself. The acceptance of the preacher’s plea to come forward and be saved, the
miserable alcoholic’s surrender to a Higher Power, the tearful return of the wayward son to the orbit of
parental love – these are Uranus’ shining hours. Uranus forever symbolizes the break from humdrum, the
rescue from mediocrity, the fulfillment of the yearning for freedom. Its purpose is to add meaning to your
life, to give you fresh reasons for continuing to live by taking up the slack caused by boredom. Zest, there-
fore, is a good keyword for Uranus. Hence, Uranus times one’s chance introduction to astrology or new
school of philosophical thought in the same way Uranus brings new love into the life of a jading widow. In
keeping with the birth motif, when Uranus is pushing you, whether gently or violently, the direction is
invariably away from darkness toward the light.
Color is one of the most useful Uranian keywords, especially when Venus is anywhere involved in a
pattern under consideration. Taking in the circus, seeing yourself for the first time in Kodachrome on a
screen, or getting a new wardrobe, are typical of the coloring processes of Uranus. In fact, a love of colors
generally seems to go along with a dominant natal Uranus. A gentleman of our acquaintance whose Uranus
is rising in his horoscope uses a prism as a paperweight on his desk. Every day the sunlight streams through
his office window, he takes time out to manipulate the prism to throw the solar spectrum onto the wall. The
sight is a pleasure he would hate to forego since the vivid rainbow has a refreshing psychological effect.
In applied psychology Uranus represents the core plot of what is called one’s guiding fiction – the
complex of ideas, reveries and self-consolations which are a recurring (sometimes continuing) source of
emotional renewal throughout life. One’s guiding fiction can take almost any form, the commonest being
an unquenchable (but normally unvoiced) conviction that one is a co-star in some great redemptive drama,
i.e., some variant of the Hero archetype. Adventist doctrine and other Fundamentalist groupthink codify
this belief in the divine-rescue concept of the Second Coming. Those less collectively oriented in their
choice of values and salvation symbols are apt to express their feelings through Love personifications, such
as idealized figures of Jesus, Adonis, Beatrice, Sunny, and the like, sometimes through poetry and art, often
through song and prayer, always through the medium of imagination. The keynote of all guiding fiction is
the future – the “living for the day” that such-and-such will happen, when God’s promise will be fulfilled,
when the One True Love will be reinstated (with the aging process defeated, of course, for the mutilated
Uranus must even the score by regaining the throne wrested from him by his bedeviled son, Cronus, the
god of time). The Uranian yearning for the return of a personal savior (bearing eternal youth, naturally) is
something quite different from the Neptunian yearning to return to prenatal bliss. Both planetary ergies

38
have their formative functions in the practical experience of the psyche, but Uranus seeks liberation whereas
Neptune strives for further absorption and entanglement. Uranus looks ahead; Neptune looks behind.
In summary, Uranus in your chart describes the way in which you are separate from the herd and unique
among your fellow human beings – your peculiar genius and the differences from that normally expected
of you on the guesswork basis of cultural background. Uranus’ position in the zodiac when you were born
is your source of mental and emotional refreshment, when touched off by the transiting benefics. Activated
by malefic bodies, you are forced to come to grips with the illusions you have been nurturing, and the ordeal
of facing stark reality may be a grim one. In either case, you are enabled to take another step toward the
prize of individuation – the reason for your having been born in the first place.

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 A NEW LOOK AT MERCURY
Where Mercury fits into the womb-to-womb theory of astrological symbolism should automatically
suggest itself to readers who have been following our attempt to connect properly the several planets with
the stages of personality development perceived by modern psychiatry. Cyril Fagan wrote that he feels
Mercury is the most underrated planet in astrology and we can’t help but agree with him. Perhaps the reason
for the general underemphasize on Mercury lies in the fact that this little planet is not glamorous enough to
capture the imagination of the average devotee of astrology. On top of this, the historic temper of the times
tends toward anti-intellectualism. As a result, popular astrology pictures a kind of eggheady creature as
being an acceptable caricature of the “true Mercurian type.”
Such a ridiculous stereotype got a foothold in modern astrology even before the smog of anti-intellec-
tualism cloaked the world, for it is easy to trace the notion back to that blight of astrology now called
schematism. Schematism all but totally wrecked astrology these past few centuries and only of late have
scholars begun the great work of reconstruction and separation of fact from fancy. The malignant growth
of schematism resulted in the formation of a vast system of associations built upon a magical assumption.
Schematism has taken many forms, familiar to us all, not the least of which is the naive interchangeability
of planet, sign and house. For example, to listen to the average superficial believer in astrology, an outsider
might never guess that there was any real difference between the meaning of the 3rd house, the planet Mer-
cury or the sign Gemini. Or even, in most instances, the ruler of the 3rd cusp, no matter which planet it
might happen to be.

Beware Predicate Thinking

In a phrase, predicate thinking is astrology’s Nemesis. The psychologist defines this as the treatment
of things as though they were the same despite differences between them. This form of distorted thinking
is the key to the average person’s prejudices and idiosyncrasies. Examples are exhaustless, but for the sake
of illustration: several deaths have occurred in that building the past few years, therefore the place is jinxed
and should be avoided. The father was a crook, so his son is not to be trusted. Nudism is against the law
and plainly indecent in New England, so Fiji Islanders are morally degenerate. And on and on.
This same tit-for-tat way of thinking did great damage to astrology in the past and examples of its
effects are almost endless. Jupiter rules the function of expansion and fat people are jolly, therefore Jupiter
rules obesity and the sense of humor. A cute mental trick, this, and the idea is almost universally accepted
in astrology. The rub, though, is that it is simply not true, and the astrologer who would keep such a stere-
otype alive is preferring predication to observation. By comparison, any John Doe of average intelligence
who reads the syndicated psychology column in his newspaper is a far better informed person on the sub-
jects of humor and being overweight.
Another effect of predicate thinking has been the customary linking of historic happenings around the
time of its discovery with the general rulerships of a new planet. The coincidences are there, to be sure, but
to hear the “predicators” talk, one would think there were no kidnappings prior to Pluto’s discovery. The
belief that ninety-degree aspects are essentially bad because adverse events occur in significant numbers
when certain squares are operating is predication of the same order. Quite as silly is the arching of eyebrows
at a gathering of astrologers should a shapely lady visitor make the mistake of revealing her Sun-sign to be
Scorpio. Or consider the familiar association of the sign Gemini with matrimony due to the coincidence
that twice as many marriages occur during June than any other month. But the June tradition is clearly a
product of economic and social convenience in our society. Other cultures have other months during which

40
most marriages take place, each such preference being of purely economic origin. In Japan and other Asiatic
countries, for example, November is the preferred month for weddings, it being the month after harvest
when dowries are more estimable and there is extra time for festivities. Marriage customs around the world
vary so widely, it is probable that any sign of the zodiac could be called the matrimonial sign by predicate
thinkers.

“To Be or Not to Be”

A few years ago the writer joined a famous astrologer for a few days’ vacation in the mountains. One
day a forestry ranger, a splendid specimen of the rugged outdoor type, dropped by our cabin for a visit and
conversation turned inevitably to astrology. Our brawny visitor was naturally curious about his own Sun-
sign and blinked with incomprehensibleness as my partner proceeded to tell him that because he was a
Virgo he was in the wrong calling, was innately good at details and should have chosen an indoor occupa-
tion. On top of this, our obviously natural-born outdoorsman was told that he was probably fussy about
food and personal hygiene, and the reason he had enlisted in the ranger service was no doubt due more to
the fact that Virgo rules small animals than to anything else. All this was told the man by a renowned
astrologer, mind you, who believed he had hit the nail on the head when the ranger occasionally nodded
with the practiced politeness shown all tourists and tenderfeet. The astrologer was proceeding on habitual
predication but was being no more laughable than the mundane astrologer who associates the Brownies
with the 3rd house because the 3rd is the 11th from the 5th, or the horary enthusiast who sees Aunt Jenny
mirrored in the 6th because the 6th is the 3rd from the 4th. The inanity of schematism in modern astrology
evidently knows no limits. It appears that the more clever a person is in playing optical hopscotch over a
horoscope, the less competent an astrologer he is really apt to be.
In giving the degloving treatment to Mercury and Mercurian symbolism, the reader will be able to
compare the mental constructions he has had of Mercury with a conception of Mercury restricted to pure
symbolism, psychiatric sidelights on its function, those basic associations which have come down to us
through the classical traditions and, mainly, stereotype-free observation. Our framework, as expected, will
be that of ontogeny (individual development), for this has served us well throughout the present series of
articles, and, besides, is necessary if the whys and therefores of symbolism are to be answered properly.
Our analyses of the other planets showed clearly that there is a logical sequence in their symbolism
which fits nicely the order of stages in the evolution of personality considered basic in psychiatric theory.
This says, incidentally, that astrology is essentially anthropomorphic, a fact which poses new questions and
raises challenges, especially in the realm of the nonhuman branches of astrology. We astrologers must not
ignore the philosophical problems created by our holding to a purely anthropomorphic view of the universe,
because aborigines do just this, too.
Last month brought us up through the narcistic stage plainly symbolized by the planet Venus which
mirrors the fourth or fifth year of life, generally speaking. Prior to that we saw Mars as representative of
the phallic level, and before that Jupiter and Saturn were in charge of what analysts call the oral and anal
phases of infancy. Uranus was significant of the birth trauma itself which ended the Neptunian period of
gestation. Pluto, of course, is the planet of conception, as many a student of solunar returns has discovered.

Earning Your Wings

So the average human being, in our climes and times, is introduced to the planet Mercury when mother
drags him to school for the first time, and his name is written down and bantered about by a crew of adults
who seem to be officially recognizing his existence as a member of the human race. About the age when
the child is enrolled in kindergarten, according to psychologists, it embarks upon a cycle, lasting several
years, which is called “latency.” The period of erotic latency corresponds roughly to the age of elementary
schooling, for it ends with the onset of adolescence. During the latency period, characteristic only of civi-
lized man according to the late Abraham Brill, there is little or no real erotic activity and its purpose appears
to be for the development of the child’s mental apparatus. Occasionally parents panic at evidences of erotic

41
experimentation, but these incidents are born of the same curiosity impelling the child to dismantle a clock-
works or explore a vacant house. That this period of learning, group playing, talkativeness and sexual “neu-
trality” should be relegated to Mercury is unquestionable.
While the Mercurian ergie is developing, the child is daily enlarging his knowledge and learning to be
dexterous and reasonable as an individual. This is the hobby period of life, the inquisitive years when the
mind is being sharpened on the whetstone of education. It is the era in our lives of vicarious travel via books
of glorious adventure. Its every day chalks up new words in the vocabulary and new ideas and visualizations
jostle one another hourly in the pliant juvenile mind. It is primarily the interpretive period of life, interpre-
tation being the fundamental keyword of the planet Mercury.
We adults often overlook how essentially Mercurian were our own childhoods. Sir James Barrie’s im-
mortal inspiration to depict the Spirit of Childhood as a boy with the power of flight is something to reflect
on. The power of flight is one of the commonest childhood fantasies, as you know if you can think back
that far. The wings motif is built literally into the standard glyph we use in horoscopy to represent Mercury,
for the caduceus is winged in the same way that the helmet and sandals of the mythical Messenger of the
Gods are winged. The flight motif fuses into the keyword travel, which is forever applied to Mercury in
astrology.
The horizon vista is a little suspected Mercurian pictograph, too, for the horizon has often been used in
literature, artwork and figures of speech to signify the urge to travel, to find out what is beyond yon moun-
tain range, past the city limits, over on the other shore. (The cadence of the song “Beyond the Blue Horizon”
is intentionally that of the clickity-clack of a railway.) So any instrument or vehicle of transportation is
under the rulership of Mercury, whether a magic carpet, a pair of wings, a spaceship, an automobile, prairie
schooner, an airplane, train or bus and, though the stereotypes of predicate thinking would have it otherwise,
any watercraft, be it a giant aircraft carrier or an ancient galleon. Whether the child is taking an imaginary
ride in a flying saucer or paddling down a stream in an imaginary birch canoe, it is the Mercurian ergie
being stimulated. Other planetary ergies, naturally, may be active, such as Neptune’s innate love of things
foreign and Uranus’ tendency to the cliff-hanging variety of heroism, but any activation of the thought form
of travel is necessarily first and foremost of Mercurian origin.
If astrological symbolism is to be consistent we must recognize Mercury as the prime ruler of aviation,
as of any and all means of conveyance, despite the temptation to consign specific modern forms of trans-
portation to Uranus or Neptune as is the wont of so many students nowadays. Corroborating this is the
association of atmosphere, the element air, with the constellation Gemini and the fact that Mercury’s other
patron zone of the zodiac is Virgo, depicted as a winged goddess. In fact, it has been hypothesized that the
written symbol for Virgo itself is a stylized folded wing. One researcher, after noting the prominence of
Neptune in the birthcharts of aviators, erroneously though understandably concluded that Neptune is the
ruler of airplanes. The explanation of his findings is quite simple in terms of astropsychology, so his error
now stands as a good example of the dangers of predicate thinking.

The Communicative Faculty

The terms education and mental organization are, in substance, synonymous. The Mercurian period is
a kind of lengthy Scrabble game; the child has a trayful of lettered blocks and learns, while playing, to
arrange them to make sense and redound to his credit. The Scrabble simile applies broadly to the whole
subject of education but has a special pertinence here because Mercury is held to be the planetary ruler of
words and wordage. It is not quite accurate to say that Mercury rules thought, per se, since the Mercurian
ergie is more correctly the bridge for thought, the wings of thought communication. Thought itself emanates
from the solar ergie within us but is communicated or transmitted by means of the Mercurian ergie. It has
always been a moot philosophical question whether thought can exist apart from words, but the astrologer
must side with that school which maintains that the human being is capable of thinking without clothing
his thoughts in language. Even the unlettered, voiceless amoeba is capable of decisions and, in his own
fashion, can probably cuss. A complete thought can be instantaneous, but words require time. Pure thought

42
is solar; thought framed in words or labels is filtered through Mercury. Carl Jung defined it in an essay on
the subject, “...language is originally and essentially nothing but a system of signs and symbols, which
denote real occurrences, or their echo in the human soul.”
When astrologers casually state that Mercury rules speech they also imply that the rulership should be
qualified in actual practice, simply because speech is used to communicate to others all the gradations of
the emotional scale, from hate to love, from terror to delight. In other words, it is plain that Mercury is the
psyche’s communicating device and is not possessed of any creativity of its own. But here the reader may
point out that Mercury must be creative since it is the planet of writing, literature and study. The answer is
that it is impossible to study, analyze, record or mentally express one’s self without wordage. Moreover,
there is nothing hierarchical about Mercury, for the world’s grammatically worst prose is just as Mercurian
as the finest work of Shakespeare. A backwoods sermon by an illiterate evangelist is just as Mercurian by
rulership as an address by a famed grammarian at a Mensa meeting. Some years back statistical researchers
failed to find Mercury the key planet to intelligence quotients. Mercury aspects and positions do govern
mental attitude and style of personal expression, it was found, but had nothing directly to do with either
brilliance or stupidity.
Mercury is not the planet of intelligence, despite the predicate thinking of astrological authors a few
generations ago. It is rather the planet of mental activity of any sort, of learning, reading, writing, debating,
advertising, persuasion, business affairs, etc. The traveler’s observational and communicative faculties are
quickened and the changing panorama of scenes and situations conduces to more rigorous mental exercise
than normally. Workaday activities and routines do not demand much of the interpretive faculty, but the
demand is greatly increased by even a visit to the county fair or a neighboring town. Mercury is the psychic
ergie we use to comprehend and cope with our environment. In traveling, the environment is constantly
changing and immensely broader than the native environs or home base. So it is natural that Mercury should
be the significator of journeys, both long or short. Predicate thinking led to the odd notion that because the
9th house rules long journeys and Sagittarius is the ninth sign, Jupiter is the promittor of long journeys.
Mercury rules messages and correspondence as well, needless to mention, as publishing and commercial
procedures.

Names and Numbers

Names are words; the most important word in anyone’s life is his given name. The most important
Mercurian factor in everyday life, then, is one’s identifying labels. Everything expressed in word or cipher
which makes for one’s identification in the world is ruled by Mercury, viz., one’s legal handle, nickname,
address, telephone, driver’s license, social security and employee button numbers, plus anything of a doc-
umentary nature. Study has shown that a person has a better chance than average to go down in history at
those localities on the Earth’s surface where his natal Mercury is conjunct an angular cusp. Every transit to
natal Mercury affords an opportunity or creates the necessity for the attraction of attention, for merit or
demerit as the case may be, to your identity as an individual. It is a Mercurian activation which “brings
your number up” or singles out your name for attention by a party outside your routine orbit of existence.
Mental disorders can be likened to a crippling of the wings of thought, to impairment of the controlled
flight of mental energy, so the textbooks faithfully ascribe insanity to afflictions of Mercury. Psychoses are
marked by the failure of the interpretive faculty, the catatonic state of stupor being its complete disintegra-
tion. Generally speaking, the books have it right, although there are many psychotic conditions not directly
traceable to Mercury. Paranoia is one, but then paranoiacs are chronic blabbermouths, anyway. Likewise,
even though Mercury’s physical rulerships are over the nervous system and the forebrain, the commonest
of all neuroses, compulsion, is a Saturn malady. Nevertheless, the typical neurotic is apt to be a strongly
Mercurian person because of a horoscope-endowed vulnerability to nervous instability in the first place.
Criminality, in its clinical sense as a neurotic trend, is also primarily Mercurian in origin, even if Mar-
tian in application and Jupiterian by inspiration. There is relic evidence that ancient astrologers on occasion
viewed Mercury as a kind of malefic, calling that planet a sidus dolosum and the “god of thieves.” What is

43
really the case, however, is that the successful perpetration of a crime such as theft requires the utmost of
quick-wittedness, sensible planning and physical agility. Many modern expressions couple Mercury with
criminality in interesting ways, e.g., mastermind, the brains of the outfit, diabolically clever, finger man,
touch, the human fly, fugitive (which means one taking flight) and the like. There are other Mercuryisms
in the crime picture, too. Criminologists marvel at how hoodlum gangs christen their vicious fraternities
with ridiculously juvenile names, and that even the most notorious public enemies are popularly known by
their childish aliases. Criminal action by itself cannot be referred to as Mercurian, but the emphasis on
motifs associated with this planet can hardly be dismissed as insignificant. Let us not forget that Gemini
rates highest as the birth constellation of “legendary” convicts and public enemies, and lowest as the birth
constellation of clergymen – statistical facts that should confound, if not convert, the skeptic.
The connection of Mercury with childish regression points up the frequent association of this planet
with sexlessness and the neuter gender. The charts of the only two hermaphrodites for which we have the
complete birth data show the constellation Virgo on both Ascendants, proving that astrology’s age-old con-
tention about this biological phenomenon is true. In horary astrology Mercury is often said to denote a boy
or preadolescent child of either sex, and two of its handiest keywords are youthfulness and immaturity. It
is worth noting here that some of our most celebrated women athletes are and have been natives of Gemini.
The latency period of childhood during which the Mercurian ergie is being cultivated is characterized
by the banding together of children into clubs and secret organizations. This aspect of Mercury, incidentally,
also has a conspicuous bearing on the subject of delinquency just touched upon. One of the most frequent
suggestions voiced by youngsters who are brought together while playing is “Let’s form a club.” The basic
ingredients of the club idea, appropriately enough, are Mercurian in flavor: special rules, spoken pledges,
codes, cryptic gestures and passwords. The impulse is keyed to the unconscious desire to be a participating
entity, to share an identifying name. Later, of course, the Jupiterian ergie takes over and the goal of partic-
ipation becomes status rather than activity. By the way, this subject of fraternal organizations offers another
example of the dangers of predicate thinking in astrology. Venus is the social planet, so predication would
link it to social factors like clubs. However, strongly Venusian members seldom stick around for very long.

The Mercurian Personality

The most conspicuous trait of the individual whose natal Mercury is dominant is the youthful intentness
of his mannerisms and overall appearance. He just doesn’t look at home in a rocking chair unless he is using
it as an observation perch. His head shifts position from time to time, often with a jerk, in order not to miss
a trick in the world around him. His eyes and face have a self-conscious motility reminiscent of bird behav-
ior. Even in advanced age this aura of youngishness can be striking – the quick physical movement, the
ballbearing sweep of the line of vision, the promptness of every response. At school, he seemed somewhat
younger than the average of his classmates. His follicles have perseverance and he is apt to sport a head of
hair when the pates of most of his friends have long since resembled billiard balls.
The speed of his physical reactions has a mental counterpart so that he tends to make up his mind on
the spur of the moment and expresses himself as though he never feels the need to ponder a decision.
Mercurians like to keep busy just for the sake of doing something as they are creatures to whom boredom
can mean psychological disaster. They impress others as either temperamentally unstable or too susceptible
to distraction to be reliable and this impression has cost many Mercurians a deserved promotion, or, for that
matter, a job for which they are eminently suited. There is nary a baritone in the purebred Mercurian pop-
ulation for this planet’s vocal range is a few keys higher than the norm. The Mercurian has an opinion about
everything under the Sun and is quick to react with an unpremeditated often unpredictable attitude – “That’s
nice!” or “How terrible!” or “Naturally!” He’s a born skeptic and when interested in religion is likely to
approach his own creed with a “Methodist” viewpoint, i.e., the Kingdom of Heaven should be founded here
in this world rather than looked for in the sky. He has a natural resistance against being fooled, thanks to
his skeptical streak, and often possesses a business instinct.

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 The whole personality of the typical Mercurian – physique and psyche considered together – appears
oriented to his nervous system. It is difficult to find a true Geminian or Virgoan who does not have at least
one physical allergy. There appear to be more alcoholics born under Gemini than under any other constel-
lation; alcoholism itself is medically definable as a chemical sensitivity or, in plain words, an allergy. Sim-
ilarly there are more health-food faddists and vegetarians born in Virgo than under any other constellation.
The likes and dislikes of the Mercurian are clear-cut and exacting, especially where the telltale neurotic
foods arc concerned (eggs, onions, squash, milk, etc.).
The overresponse of all their physical functions reflects this emphasis on their neural organization, for
they are usually hypersensitive to pain, easily raise welts quickly when bruised or bitten by mosquitos,
suffer cold and closeness earlier than others, and have poor resistance against skin ailments. The proclivity
to nervousness, in the ordinary usage of the word, is the reason why Mercurians tend to be smokers and
drinkers, more easily develop psychosomatic symptoms, and get unduly excited over what others consider
trivialities. Mercurians are likable people; it’s difficult to stay mad at anybody who can whistle and it’s
impossible to dislike someone who at fifty enjoys flying a kite with the neighborhood kids or who would,
if he could, pay his way into the movies with the pop bottle deposits, just for the heck of it!

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 PLUTO MALIGNED PLANET OF MIRACLES
“Divorce begins by the age of five” declared a prominent psychologist not long ago. The astrologer can
go him one better and assert that divorce begins from the very moment of birth. However, as we have been
trying to show in this series of articles on planetary symbolism, it takes several years for the individual soul
to shape itself in full accord with the pattern of the birth chart. All of the known planetary ergies achieve
this adjustment by the age of seven or eight. It is a fact that every probative scientific study of human
behavior shows that personality traits – including social prejudices and delinquency tendencies – are formed
by the time the child is eight years old. The reader who may feel that we have been overemphasizing the
“childish side” of the origin of astrological symbolism should give this careful thought.
Your subconscious mind is the storehouse of every by-passed memory and every experience you’ve
had since the hour you were conceived. So even in middle life or advancing age when you make a move or
decision in the belief that you arc being guided by pure reason, the truth is that you are being motivated
largely by the dictates of your subconscious – which made up its mind for you ’way back when. Figuratively
speaking, your horoscope tells what your subconscious thinks and how it feels about everything, for your
horoscope was the original die in which your psyche was cast in the first place. The modern psychologist
concerns himself with the product of the horoscope. The astrologer concerns himself with the manufactur-
ing process of the product. In terms of service to the human race, the typical psychologist and typical as-
trologer are only half as effective as they could be, if that much. Let us pray they soon combine their wits.

Pluto and Conception

The persevering reader who has become familiar with the basic idea underlying our theory of symbol-
ism has already learned where Pluto fits in our scheme of stages in individual development. Surely, Pluto
is the planet which best symbolizes the miracle of conception. Its very keywords, quite apart from any
compound of astrology and psychoanalysis, hint forcibly of this fact. The conception motif, which modern
astrologers are increasingly coming to relegate to the office of Pluto, is the psychologically appropriate
common denominator for all the basic objects and subjects being listed in astrology’s literature as things
“under the rulership” of this outermost planet in the solar system.
The most frequently voiced and penned idea among astrologers nowadays is the association of Pluto
with “the collective.” The idea is most vividly reflected in the use of “groups” and “mass movement” as
the commonest keywords in articles and conversations involving this planetary body. A most apt symbol
for mass movement is the dramatic appearance of live semen under a microscope. Such a sight stands as
the most dynamic pictograph of Pluto imaginable, for it causes the intellect to throb with a syndrome of
awe and puzzlement. The inevitable thought here is that Pluto is representative of First Cause. Pluto exem-
plifies First Cause, the Primum Mobile of life, to us humans because we cannot at our present stage of
evolution comprehend anything more remote from the immediate than the first knowablc step in the pro-
duction of a living organism. Every one of us at some time or other pretends to understand the riddle,
“Before the amoeba, what?” but this introspective speculation we all do occasionally is simply the ergie of
the planet Pluto exercising within our souls. Hence, we rightly say that Pluto is appurtenant to the inexpli-
cable, the miraculous, the mysterious, the Protean, and the “whats” which precede birth and succeed death.
Strange, how the planet ruling “the collective” and “group activity” should actually prove to be the
most individualistic of all the planets. The regular emphasis on the multiplicity motif of Pluto has given
rise to a widespread misunderstanding as to the nature of this unduly maligned planet. In fact, the idea is
current that Pluto’s influence is almost entirely of a collective sort so that the individual is hardly affected

46
by Pluto in his private life. But study of Plutonian effects in horoscopy proves that this little planet’s influ-
ence is among the most intensely personal and intimate of all. The masses idea is part of the picture only
so far as the collective represents a contrasting background for individual exceptions! Even the kidnapping
motif associated with Pluto is actually an example of the “singling out” process of this most dramatic of
planetary forces.
Only recently have scientists come to understand the intricacies of the process of human conception; a
few years back, many of the big slick magazines carried feature articles reporting the new findings – but
the astrological press kept its silence. Sidelight: Among the discoveries which gave the lie to the prenatal
epoch theory in astrology is the fact that conceptions occur on an average of twelve hours after coitus. The
prenatal epoch chart cannot be the chart of the moment of conception simply because the majority of con-
ceptions occur around noontime, plus or minus a couple of hours or so. However, the Sun’s placement in
epoch charts follows the rules laid down by normal probability, proving that the epoch theory is little else
than a mathematical plaything. Although several hundred million spermatozoa make the effort to find the
ovum, only one of those millions does the fertilizing and even that feat is unlikely. Once this first arrival
burrows into the egg, a radical chemical change takes place and the egg wall becomes impermeable; no
other sperm can penetrate it.

Of Miracles and Precedents

The phrase, “the miracle of conception,” is not just an old bromide, for surely, in the light of probability,
it is a mathematical rarity, a literal freak accident. Conception is Pluto’s official business, and even in this
department of life Pluto dramatizes the descriptive titles astrologers are correctly beginning to apply to it,
among them: “the defier of odds,” “planet of the miraculous” and “isolator of one in a million.” It is little
to wonder at, therefore, why Pluto is the front-and-center planet involved in the solunars covering miracu-
lous, freakish, impossible experiences.
You will find that Pluto is the key planet in the charts of anything incredible or awe-inspiring, whether
it be an astonishing example of faith healing at a sacred shrine, an uncanny rescue after all hope had waned,
or an unbelievably lucky landing after parachute failure, and so on. We have quite a collection of authentic
cases of freak accidents and miracles, and in every instance Pluto is the outstanding influence concerned,
far outshining Jupiter on every score. Carefully cast the mundoscopes for the precise moments when fan-
tastically high-paying longshots win horse races and you will see the odds defying office of Pluto in action.
In mundane astrology we find Pluto the significator of political precedents, “dark horses,” coups and coro-
nations, the setting of new sports records, and faddish public interest in the offbeat (such as flying saucers
and “the Search for Bridey Murphy”).
It is important, toward understanding Pluto, that we face the fact that this planetary ergie is completely
amoral – not immoral or unmoral or antimoral, but simply amoral. There is nothing vicious or virtuous
about Pluto, alone considered, and for this reason Pluto is classed along with Mercury as a neutral body. In
day to day observation through astrological eyes we are apt to recognize Plutonian action in consistently
negative ways – via its couplings with the truly malefic planets – and thereby tend to lump Pluto along with
Mars, Saturn and Neptune as a sort of practical working rule. Statistics taken at face value, too, can be cited
as proof that Pluto is as diabolic as they come. In the charts of murderers, for instance, we know that Pluto
is in the natal foreground as often as the malefics, in contrast to the usual cadency of the benefics. The rub
lies in the fact that Pluto is regularly in the foreground of saintly horoscopes, too.

Plutonian Experiences
In the dynamic spiritual philosophy of Martin Buber the writer first found an inkling of the true meaning
of Pluto, the common denominator which suffices to make sense out of the Plutoniana which has been
accumulating in astrological literature these past few decades. Buber, it was, who introduced the concept
of I-It and I-Thou to a wondering world. In our age, living is mainly a matter of endless I-It relationships.
The average person fulfills his threescore and ten in the frame of reference of It. One’s neighbors are Its.

47
All too often, one’s spouse and children are Its, too, and are related to the ego with much the same sort of
It-ness represented by one’s employer or employees, friends, pastor and, it is necessary to say, God in a
theological sense. Even in love, as when two people see in each other only a projection of themselves (the
mirror of Venus), the I-lt can stand in the way of a true meeting of identities. It is a fact we all know that
people can have the same heredity and environment, can live out their lifetimes eating, sleeping and sharing
problems together, without ever truly communicating with each other. They remain as much Its to each
other as their own hands and feet remain Its throughout life.
A true meeting of souls is an I-Thou relationship – and a rare occurrence it is, to be sure. Oddly enough,
an I-Thou meeting is possible through either love or hate, the definition of I-Thou being wholly amoral, to
wit: “I-Thou stands for the kind of meeting in which two beings face and accept each other as truly human.”
I-Thou meetings, to continue quoting the philosopher, are “strange, lyric and dramatic episodes, seductive
and magical, but tearing us away to dangerous extremes, loosening the well-tried context... shattering se-
curity.” It is clear, then, why mankind tends to fear I-Thou and erects a high wall, built of Its, around himself
to stave off such jarring experiences. The most artful and effective I-It barrier is collectivism, according to
psychologists, or as Buber himself puts it, collectivism is “the last barrier raised by man against a meeting
with himself.” In other words, humans tend to employ social identifications as a dodge; it’s so nice and
easy to justify a thought you have because you are a Baptist or a Mormon or a Catholic, to rationalize an
attitude because you are a Republican or from Dixie or raised in a logging community, to explain away a
character defect on the grounds of Irish or German or Sicilian ancestry, etc.

Choosing and Being Chosen

Those readers who have personally studied the effects of Pluto in their own and others’ charts know
fully well how bluntly antisocial this planetary ergie is, and it was this realization which first led us to think
of Pluto as the antithesis of I-It identifications. Probing deeper into Buber we learned more of the intricacies
of I-Thou affairs and were impressed by the startling way I-Thou meetings symbolically reflect the process
of conception. An I-Thou meeting results invariably in a dialogue which the philosopher defines as “a
fusion of action and response, of choosing and being chosen.” The supreme I-Thou confrontation, of course,
is with God. The dialogue-idea stems directly from the Old Testament, the writings of the prophets and
especially the Book of Job being sterling examples of personal conversations and exchanges with the Eter-
nal Thou. If you are one of those people who have lost faith in the efficacy of prayer, reanalyze the Ad-
dressee of your unanswered supplications. Even to many deeply religious people God remains in the It
category, much like a pair of dice, to be kissed, seven come eleven, to be despised, come boxcars. And as
with any It-god, the boxcars turn up even after a heartfelt ritual and reverent whisper into cupped hands.
But we digress. We personally believe that every activation of natal Pluto by transit or progression
denotes, in one way or another, a kind of I-Thou experience with its ensuing dialogue and spiritual wrestling
match. It is vitally important to remember that I-Thou meetings never occur in what we as social beings
think of as a moral frame of reference, for such a frame is inevitably of I-It origin. Characteristic of Pluto-
nian experience is the disappearance of any true awareness of time as we normally understand past, present
and future. Vanished, temporarily, is any sense of social responsibility or consciousness of consequences
for decision and behavior. The psyche seems tensely gripped with the challenge of the moment and the
tension erupts as a spiritual interrogative: “Why, God?”
The solunars for the event of the death of loved ones, brutally snatched away into the unknown, are
often dominated by Pluto, if the native has not fully convinced himself that his own religion or philosophy
adequately provides the answers to the mysteries of existence. The person whose church satisfactorily sup-
plies all reasons and directions does not suffer these losses in a Plutonian atmosphere, for there is no need
for a third degree of Deity. The same applies to one’s own deathbed scene, which is the rationale for the
prominence of Pluto in the typical lunar return of terminus vita. Likewise, a powerful Pluto is customary
for the event of being told by the doctor that one has a cancer or similar affliction – immediately a dialogue
with the Eternal Thou follows such a shattering pronouncement.

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 The face to face confrontation of the kidnap victim and his captor – a big question billowing through
both souls – is surely a personal 1-Thou relationship. Either party may have gone his entire lifetime up to
that critical moment without ever having known what being human is really like. Until that meeting of
person with person, other humans may have been but furniture in one’s parlor of existence; my son, my
mother, that prissy librarian, the neighborhood gossip, a nice fellow, the boss, a likable cab driver, a sweet
kid, a pest, my favorite comedian, a badge-heavy cop, somebody I’d like to know better, a brother lodge
member, ad infinitum and a thousand other categories you can think of on the spur of the moment as you
read. To the average modern man, the people across the street and the family of gophers in the backyard
lawn have just about the same degree of “personality.”
Pluto-wrought events and developments of lesser gravity than the foregoing examples also contain the
seeds of I-Thou meetings, though in what way is often elusive until later analysis. Seldom, if ever, does the
individual carry away a remorseful memory, even when his deportment during the Pluto vibration repre-
sents a repudiation of every ideal theretofore upheld, of everything considered fine and proper in terms of
training and habitual attitude. “It just happened, that’s all,” and “It was meant to be!” are typical reactions
to bygone Plutonian experiences.

“In the Beginning...”

Inasmuch as Pluto humanly stands for First Cause, this planet may be thought of as symbolic of the
dividing line between what oversimplifying metaphysicians call the material and spiritual planes, between
a principle and an example of that principle, between a pattern for something and the something itself. It is
a difficult tenet to grasp in words and we must resort to what may appear to be unduly abstract examples.
Pluto within us is the power to symbolize – the medium through which we understand subjectively. Just as
the moment of conception is the boundary between a kind of primordial chaos and order, figuratively speak-
ing, so Pluto is the demarcation between Number and a number, between Color and a color, between Sound
and a sound, between Law and a law, between Form and form, and so forth. This allocation is not to be
taken literally, of course, any more than an intelligent Christian would literally believe that Heaven's streets
are paved with a metal having an atomic weight of 197.
In everyday life it invariably proves to have been Pluto at work when you have undergone those rare
moments of feeling yourself at the mercy of forces beyond mortal ken, of “standing on the brink of eternity,”
of temporary detachment from the phenomenal world. (Fainting and lapses in consciousness, by the way,
have been found to be Pluto’s responsibility.) Occasionally the world and existence itself do not seem real
during the crest of a sudden Pluto incursion into your consciousness. And not a few of us have had the eerie,
short-lived conviction at such times that maybe this was a glimpse of actuality and that worldly life itself
is only a dream from which we might someday awaken. Plutonian progressions and transits coincide with
crises of a dramatic, miraculous nature, which spur one to remark, “It makes you stop and think!” It is the
Pluto within you in those fleeting moments when you “understand,” through unexpected conception (little
wonder the two meanings of the word), a truth which you cannot convey to others, let alone fully expound
to yourself afterward, but which you are certain is a genuine peek through the curtain which veils the Mys-
tery of Being.
Among the symbol motifs of Pluto in astrology is the resurrection theme and all that the Easter saga
means in Jungian depth psychology. This theme has as its kernel the seed motif which is easily traceable to
Pluto’s rulership of the miracle of conception... “that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.” In
each of our articles in this series we have tried to segregate a single keyword which holds true for each
planet viewed from any perspective; our choice for an all-embracing clue for Pluto is simply “Genesis.”

Pluto in Behavior Terms

The singling-out function of Pluto expresses itself as intense individuality, in a setting of oneself apart
from the common throng, not in the aristocratic sense of elitism but in the antisocial sense of to hell with it

49
all. Pluto-dominated souls suffer spiritually when being counted as mere members of a herd. Their conten-
tion against society is usually a matter of trying to keep from being dissolved by the gastric juices of Es-
tablishment mores and politics. They can be frighteningly cruel and unfeeling if Pluto is linked with a
malefic planet, in which case the antisociality can take on diabolic forms. By contrast, Pluto coupled with
a benefic can take on or radiate utterly angelic qualities. The dearest, most inoffensive souls you encounter
in life are apt to have strong, unafflicted Plutos. No, Pluto by itself is not a malefic; it is more sinned against
than sinning. People noted for their genuine niceness and lack of guile are born under Pluto interweavings
with other benefic planetary forces.
People who are strongly Plutonian in makeup and behavior often dress garishly and in defiance of
majority tastes even though they are the essentially timid, nonaggressive type. They can be the prime ex-
amples of sheer high camp – innocent and ingenuous at the same time they are being what polite conformists
consider outrageous in manner and viewpoint. They seem completely at home in the forest primeval, for
they have natural rapport with other forms of life, just as they can seem part of the decor of a bohemian
coffeehouse. Don’t misunderstand: they are not of the great unwashed ilk who consider themselves children
of Nature and seekers of Truth. Rather, they are the real thing in the way of God’s children – because
Plutonians need no countercultural trappings, no doctrines or causes or poses to fall back on as the raison
d’etre of their existence. They just are, and that is all there is to it. It is difficult to hassle them about anything
creedal or ethnic; they won’t want to argue back out of consideration for your own blood pressure. This
innate air of naivete makes them seem to invite aggression by others, which is why it is said that upbeat
Plutonians are born targets for romantic and erotic overtures – and sometimes forcible molestation.

The Spring Unwinds

In closing our exposition of the psychic origins for the symbolism of the eight nonluminary planets
used in horoscopy, it would be well to point out that there is also a rough comparison between the stages of
life from adolescence on until death, in reverse order. Our theory has been based upon an association of
each of the planets, beginning with Pluto marking conception (“the first shall be last”) on through the var-
ious periods of individual development to the Mercurian phase of middle childhood. It is somewhat as
though the planetary ergies double back on themselves in symbolic ways during the remainder of life, a
kind of unwinding of the planetary mainspring of personality expression. This observation may be nothing
more substantial than pure predicate thinking on the part of the writer, but let us not pass up anything which
may serve to give us clearer understanding of the planets and ourselves.
The latency period of Mercury represents a repression of any real traces of erogenicity and generally
covers the years of elementary schooling. Otherwise, this seven or eight year period can be called the only
truly neutral era of the lifetime. And almost too suddenly, we remember as adults, this truce between the
mind and the rest of the psyche is brought to a close with the comedy of adolescence. The year of adoles-
cence marks the point where the psyche starts reaching backward in time – an apparent recapitulation of
ergie growth. All the planetary ergies, which are actually those factors that scientists apart from astrology
call psychic components, have firmly entrenched themselves in the personality by the time of the onset of
puberty. The planetary stages in the development of personality, and in the evolution of our individual
consciousness of the world (of Its exclusively?), begin to counterpart themselves in reverse order, as the
human being proceeds toward his legal majority and onward, then, to the consummation which is physical
death.
The glandular discontents, the painfully sensitive emotions, self-consciousness about appearance, and
the heart-strumming crushes of the early teens, are symptoms of a more advanced Venus-awareness. This
stage is followed by a reinforcement of the Martian qualities in the soul and body, as the fullness of man-
hood and womanhood begins to show itself in virility, the courage of ripening youth, and the quixotic quest
for victory through prowess and competition.

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 Jupiter, being the planet of status and enthusiasm to “go out into the world and seek a fortune,” corre-
sponds to the attainment of majority, with its full rights of citizenship and exercise of judgment (the pro-
gressed Moon to transitive Jupiter cycle is just 21 years in length, but this may be pure coincidence). After
the flush of pride at receiving one’s first real paycheck, follow the Saturnian years of working for the sup-
port of self and loved ones in the drive for economic security. This is also the time when you get set in your
ways and begin to moralize about the faults of the world and the foibles of the people in it. As the Saturn
period gets underway you are apt to forget the youthful ideals and zest you started out with and strike out
at environmental and social problems with a characteristic, “There oughta be a law!”
It is quite true in most cases that life begins at forty, for this revival of Uranian zest often coincides
with that second dangerous period of life, that of the “last fling.” Late middle age is a period of self-discov-
ery, of awakening to talents theretofore unknown, to interest in subjects and activities not absolutely nec-
essary to workaday survival. The onset of menopause in both sexes unconsciously registers as a kind of
shock by the incursion of reality into the life, not far different in its impact from the disruption of foetal
serenity by birthing itself. Also, this period is that of separations, primarily through the death of parents and
those people who have always been there to turn to in times of trouble and indecision – and the native now
must be on his own. The psyche then launches onto the sea of Neptunian reverie, known as the dotage of
old age, when all the decades of experience preceding it are remembered wispily as tangible souvenirs of
the Good Old Days. Appropriately, even the parasite motif of Neptune is strongly in evidence during this
final phase of the cycle of living. The crisis of death is merely a return into the Mystery of Being itself,
which brings us right back to where we started, to Pluto, where we ponder its meaning... where we confront
the Eternal Now and Thou. This interpretation of the psychological meanings of the planets is a theory, and
has not been offered as a body of incontestable truth. Heed, with the writer, an exhortation penned by Dr.
Jung: “That is why 1 say to any beginner: Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them aside when
you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not theories, but your own creative individuality alone must de-
cide.” Wise words, those. And notice that you can’t feel the touch if wearing kid gloves.

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