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Caring for your debilitated moon

We learned in our last little chat that a debilitated moon generally implies issues with our perceptive faculties, perhaps even our senses themselves, and with unconscious processes. This means that, for whatever reason, our senses do not always relay a clear and accurate reflection of reality – we receive an image slightly askew, distorted by our own mental filter through which we see events.

So, fate has given us some work to do. How do we fix this?

How to train your moon (now in 3D)

The Manner and Wit of the Native

While the temperament is an internal and largely unchanging aspect of personality that determines character as well as the form of the body itself, the native's manner describes his behavioural traits, those observable characteristics that are visible to others and mark him out as a particular sort of person. Jupiter as the planet ruling his manners and the native might be described as generous and affable; Saturn, austere and serious.

The Lord of the Geniture

What is Lord of the Geniture?

The Lord of the Geniture is, to put it simply, the most powerful planet in the natal chart (by essential dignity) which has the power to assist the native. Essential dignity is straightforward enough to determine, however a strong planet with weak accidental dignity, such as one in the 8^th or the 12^th house, is not going to be of much use to the native and therefore does not satisfy the conditions necessary to be Lord of the Geniture.

How is it calculated?

In his magnum opus Christian Astrology, William Lilly describes three methods that were used by the ancients to determine the Lord of the Geniture and then describes his own method. These methods are as follows:

1. The method of Firmicus. Here we consider the sign that the moon is in, and take as Lord of the Geniture, the Lord of the subsequent sign. For example, if the Moon is in Aries, then Venus, as Lady of the following sign of Taurus, is Lady of the Geniture; if the Moon is in Leo, the Lord of the Geniture is Mercury, ruler of Virgo.
2. The hylegical places method. The planet with the most essential dignities in the degrees of the ascendant, the mid-heaven, the sun, the moon and the part of fortune is taken as Lord of the Geniture
3. The method of the Greeks. The Lord of the Geniture is taken to be the planet with the most dignities in the degree of the moon or mercury (who rule over the body and the spirit respectively).

Lilly's own method is to take that planet that has the most essential and accidental dignities and is “posited best, and elevated most in the Scheme” as Lord of the Geniture, with any other planet with almost equal strength acting as a modifier of the influence of the Lord of the Geniture.

How will knowing it help me?

Along with the temperament, the Lord of the Geniture has an overarching influence over the entire nativity and, to quote Lilly again, “the whole actions of the Native will more or less partake of the nature of that Planet and so his Conditions, Complexion, Temperament and Manners shall be much regulated to the properties assigned that Planet”.

As the most dignified planet in the nativity and with high accidental dignity, the Lord of the Geniture is also the planet most able to assist the native in fulfilling his destiny and it acts as a guide as well as a helper. It is, as the astrologer John Frawley describes it, our Internal King and ”as king, it is this planet's job to steer the ship of state.” (Real Astrology Applied)

Temperament and Bardon's Soul Mirrors

One particularly useful application of the calculation of temperament for the aspiring Hermeticist is as an aid and a guide to the creation of the Soul Mirrors described in Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics.

If you are not familiar with the author, the basic idea is that one spends some time in exacting introspection to identify and describe the largely unconscious characteristics that make up our personality. Bardon has one begin with the Black Soul Mirror which is a description of all of our negative characteristics. Bardon leaves it up to the student to determine what negative means to him, but these are, broadly speaking, qualities that hinder rather than help us. He tells us that “... you have to be pitiless and very strict with yourself when it comes to your shortcomings, failings, habits, passions, urges and many other negative character traits.”

It may seem like a horribly self-destructive and depressing task to label all the ways in which you are an awful human being, but the ability to look at yourself with an objective perspective is a necessary part of spiritual growth and achieving what Bardon calls the “magical equilibrium”, a state of being in which one is able to act intentionally without being influenced by one's subconscious programming. If you are following Bardon's program of study, it's a necessity, without which you risk serious imbalance when you start working with the elements directly.

This done, Bardon has the student assign each of these characteristics to an element; and then the whole process is repeated with one's positive characteristics to create the White Soul Mirror. By the end of this exercise, you have a basic idea of the balance of the four elements as they exist within your personality.

The calculation of your temperament does the same thing in a more general sense. By considering the significators of one's temperament, one can learn the natural elemental balance as determined by the factors of one's birth as described in the nativity. This is one's innate elemental makeup. It may be altered slightly perhaps by one's environment and training, but it's there in the background controlling most of our actions and reactions.

I find the temperament a good guide to what the Soul Mirrors will look like once completed , e.g., if you are predominantly choleric, you should have the largest proportion of characteristics listed under the Fire element. It is also an indication of the exercises and elements you may have most difficulty with and those you and those you will take to (forgive the pun) like a duck to water.

The Temperament or Complexion of the Native

One of the first techniques in the toolbox of the traditional astrologer used when interpreting a nativity was the calculation of the temperament of the native. Based upon then humoral theory of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, whose school of medicine had an enormous influence on medieval medical theory and practice, the temperament offered a basic psychological description of the person being described in a nativity, their innate disposition through which they experienced the world and interpreted events.

Hippocrates posited the existence of four humours, or fluids, that resided within the human body and which were responsible for its health and, in the case of a severe imbalance, the cause of illness and death. Although the humours were considered to have a physiological basis, they were also regarded as being responsible for the emotional differences between human beings and influenced every aspect of mental functioning, from habits, intelligence, to morality and dreams.

How many temperaments are there?

There are four basic temperaments based on the four qualities of Heat, Coldness, Dryness and Moisture which in turn are qualities of the four basic elements that were thought to comprise matter – Fire, Air, Water and Earth. Although every person will have some of each element present in their makeup, the dominance of one particular element will determine that person's temperament.

The Choleric, an abunbance of Heat and Dryness, the fiery Type personality. William Lilly tells us “Cholerick people are full of anger, quarrelsome, revengefull, ambitious, importunate, imperious, hardy, rash, involving themselves unto necessary troubles, seditous, many times ingenious, and easily changing their opinions.” Due to the predominance of the fire element, people with a choleric temperament tend to be strong willed, focused, extroverted, goal-oriented, passionate and easily aroused to love and hate. They are the archetypal leader and visionary, and like many visionaries they have little patience for the details. As such, they can become irritable when things are not going their way and are prone to burnout.

The Melancholic, overabundance of Cold and Dry, the Earth Type personality. William Lilly again: “Melanchollick persons are slow in resolutions, fraudulent, keeping close their counsels, prudent, severe, covetous, suspicious, sorrowfull, fearfull, forward, seldome forgeting injuries, inexorable, ambitious, loving no mans esteem but their owne.” As the word suggests, melancholics are often prone to melancholic episodes. They tend to be solitary, introspective, generally intelligent (although their need to mull things over may give the impression of dullness), and these characteristics tend to set them apart from their peers often resulting in loneliness and feeling that they are not understood. Although they may sometimes appear to be emotionally cold and callous, they can have very deep feelings and, as Marsilio Ficino notes in his De Vita, the melancholy temperament is often associated with artists, philosophers and genius of diverse kinds.

The Sanguine, predominantly Hot and Moist, the Air type personality. “A Sanguine temperament shewes men or person cheerfull, liberal, faithfull, affable, peace-makers, open hearted, modest, religious.” If the melancholic is the wallflower hiding in the corner, the sanguine is the social butterfly. Optimistic, good-natured, extroverted but, unlike the choleric, interested in other people, the sanguine is usually the life of the party, and appears to his friends to be either exceptionally lucky in his life or somehow able to generate his own luck. The sanguine possesses a cheerful disposition that is unaffected by even the most cruelest vicissitudes of fate.

The Phlegmatic, Cold and Moist, the Water type personality. Not having much good to say about them, Lilly tells us that phlegmatics “are very cowards, uxorious people mutable, not capable of keeping secrets, dull fellowes and sluggards in performing any businesse.” Water being a passive element and by its nature amorphous (water takes the shape of the container in which it is placed), phlegmatics were viewed with some suspicion. Phlegmatics tend to be imaginative, fantasy prone, empathic and can seem slightly otherworldy to others. They tend to have a highly developed intuitive ability which they rely on to make their decisions. Their carefree “go with the flow” attitudes can be infuriating to some and completely mysterious to others.

Note that, although there are four basic temperaments, it is possible to have two in balance. The temperament is also modified by the Lord of the Geniture, the strongest planet in the nativity, and the Manners of the native, the intellectual capacity and tendencies. Each temperament is also associated with a particular planet (the choleric with Mars, the melancholic with Saturn, the sanguine with Jupiter, and the phlegmatic with the moon), and the strength and placement of this planet in his geniture will have a determining factor in how the temperament is expressed.

How is it calculated and why should I bother?

The calculation of the temperament is based upon the ascendant and the planets in the first house or aspecting it, the sun, the moon and the planets beholding her, and the lord of the geniture.

So, now you have your temperament, what do you do with it? While medieval medicine may seem rather odd to us today, it had much in common with other ancient healing modalities such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Like these increasingly popular forms of alternative medicine, the Hippocratic-Galenic medicine of medieval times was holistic and centred around the ideal of balance and utilised everything from diet, exercise, herbs, surgery as well as astrological magic to effect a cure.

While I would not advocate a visit to your local barber for a bit of bloodletting today, knowledge of one's temperament does offer one some important insight that can be used to increase wellness. For example, if you are aware that you are highly choleric, you can determine that you may be prone to overexertion and burnout. In the event that you are going to be in a high stress situation, this knowledge should allow you to plan ahead to take some time out to engage in some activities to lessen the influence of too much choler such as meditation, or a swim in a cool lake.

What is my temperament?

If you want to know what your temperament is, choose the Temperament Calculation from the drop-down box on the right.  Please include your time, date and place of birth, and I will calculate this for you.  

Wealth and fate – astrology and magic

This was a response to a discussion about the utility of magic to overcome or change the restrictions placed on our financial circumstances by fate, karma and one's nativity.

In traditional astrology there are significators of wealth in your natal chart which describe your future financial status and your ability to accrue wealth, as well as give indications where this money will come from (and, if afflicted, how you will lose money), but the amount of wealth you could accumulate was considered largely determined by the conditions of your birth. Here's William Lilly on the traditional astrology answer regarding the question of fate and wealth:

"..for a beggar's child may have a nativity equal with a king's but then they are not both the sons of kings; therefore at what time an extraordinary direction happens, whereby a king obtains extraordinary or very great honour upon the influence thereof; the young beggar having the very same fortunate direction in his nativity, has no more falls to his share, then either to fall to some course of life, not so sordid to beg. A king has loans or money of his subjects; it happens the beggar has some more than usual bountiful alms from some good people.

A king performs some honourable exploit; a beggar has more than ordinary respect amongst his fellow beggars, for some neat piece of service he has performed for the fellowship; so that herein the one has honour according to his capacity, and the other such fame with his companions, which pleases him as well as honour." (Christian Astrology, p616)

In Lilly's day if you are born a beggar, you are never going to become king, and if your father was a stonemason, well, that's going to be your profession too. Although the level of wealth you may achieve is still largely determined by the family you are born into, if you are lucky enough to live in a wealthy country, you likely have a lot more options than anyone born before you has ever had.

Firstly, you have the ability to relocate relatively easily to a city or country with more options. There's an idea in traditional astrology that the testimony of your nativity takes precedence over any horary chart promising wealth, and likewise, the nativity of the country you are in takes precedence of your nativity. If you cast a horary chart that shows you obtaining piles of cash, the size of the pile is going to be relative to the strength of the significators of wealth in your nativity. Likewise, if your nativity promises you wealth but you live in a relatively poor country with few options for improving your circumstances (and the nativity of your country and its mundane astrology show nothing improving its GDP anytime soon), the likelihood is that you will do well in comparison to your countrymen, but your ability to achieve wealth is restricted.

If you are in a job that doesn't pay well, you are able to retrain for an alternative, better paying career, and you can look for alternative streams of income while you are doing so. You have access to resources and information via the internet that you can make use of.

The problem with doing magic for money isn't that magic is useless at making people wealthy, it's that most money magic is really emergency magic, and people are crap at making choices that improve their financial circumstances. It's not necessarily because people are stupid, it's just that school does not give you the skills to become wealthy. Education is indoctrination - it's about making you into a useful cog that knows its place in the machine and doesn't question its lowly condition.

If you want to use magic to make money, your plan should look something like this;

1. Figure out a way to make money and to become wealthy
2. Divine on how to make your venture a success (for example, if you are an astrologer and you want to invest money somewhere, you might do so when your significators of wealth are in a strong place, you might cast a horary chart for that stock option, or you might elect a time to invest in the market)
3. Do some magic

Magic is the last step, not the first. If everything preceding your magic is not in place, you're going to win a small amount on a scratch card or you're going to find £20 on the street. If that's all you are getting for the days of fasting, the thousands you spent on your lionskin belt and the fancy sword, the eyestrain from reading the charge to the spirit by candlelight, go back to step 1 and start again.