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THE PLANETS IN THE TWELVE HOUSES  

 

Dane Rudhyar

 

The relationship between a planet and a house can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, the planet in a house indicates that the basic type of experiences to which the house refers can be handled to the best advantage by the physiological and especially the psychological function symbolized by the planet. On the other hand, the fact that a planet is located in a particular house suggests that the character of the experiences represented by that house will affect the manner in which the planetary function normally operates. To illustrate this last point we might say that if a man lives in an arctic region, his liver and his drive toward physical achievements will operate in a manner which is distinctly different from that which can be expected in the tropics.

The houses have often been linked with the various types of life circumstances, and this interpretation is correct up to a point. In a strictly person-centered and humanistic astrology what is essential is the individual's experience under these types of circumstances (circum-stances literally means what surrounds the experiencer); in other words, the subjective aspect of the houses is emphasized rather than the objective situation inducing the experience. This seems far more important because the same external circumstances can produce different experiences in different individuals, or even at different periods in the life of the same individual. What matters psychologically and holistically is the attitude of the individual to what occurs.

A planet in a house indicates what type of functional activity will naturally condition this attitude. It is "natural" for a cat to want to eat birds, but the cat may be trained not to chase them. In terms of nature's ecological balance, however, it is "best" for any living organism to act according to its instinct, death being merely a phase of the vast rhythmic process of nature. In the Bhagavad-Gita the divine Manifestation, Krishna, enjoins his pupil, Arjuna, to follow his dharma, what in man is the conscious equivalent of compulsive and unconscious instinct in animals and plants. Arjuna, a leader of the Warrior caste, is told to strike his enemies not under the impulse of personal hatred, but as a consecrated agent of the divine Will, leaving this Will to account for the results of the struggle.

If therefore Mars is in a person's first house, that person will find it "natural" to go forth as an individual with Martian impulsiveness; by so doing he or she will "best" come to the realization of his or her essential "truth of being" or spiritual identity. On the other hand, the Mars function in that person will tend to be rather strongly individualized, because its basic purpose will be to reveal to the individual what he or she really is. The Mars function will be most effective — it will most truly fulfill its purpose — when used in terms of first house issues, and not, for instance, in terms of fifth house love affairs and children, or of second and eighth house management of personal or conjugal business, etc.

This obviously is not meant to convey the idea that the Mars function cannot operate in all the life circumstances in which it is needed; but the typical  character of that operation in the above-mentioned case should carry the stamp of a highly individualized purpose and, in a sense at least, it should be related constantly to the central problem of self-discovery if it is to be of maximum value to the person with Mars in the first house.

I believe that it is only as this basic approach to the planets and their positions in natal houses is clearly understood that the student of astrology can use this particular astrological tool to full advantage. The difficulty in giving specific examples is that the house position of a planet is only one of many factors which constantly interact. It should be clear, however, that a planet in any house, or in any zodiacal sign, always retains its basic functional character. The traditional concept that a planet is strong or weak, exalted or in detriment in certain house and sign positions is open to question; in any case, strength or weakness does not change the functional character of the planet. At most it can only indicate whether circumstances and genetic patterning are more or less favorable for the operation of the function. A relatively weak function can dominate the consciousness of the organism and perhaps find substitutes for action when such action is essential to survival or to the individual's basic purpose; moreover, we should realize that so-called discordant aspects can also release great strength. Nevertheless, the position of a planet very close to one of the angles of the chart makes its function a prominent feature in the person's basic approach to life.

THE SUN In each house the Sun indicates that the kind of experience to which the house refers will tend to call for a spontaneous and at least relatively forceful release of vital energy.

In the first house this energy should illumine and sustain the search for identity and the intuitive perception of who one really is, or of one's self-image. The person with the Sun about to rise may experience an inner enthusiasm, a freshness of viewpoint, or simply robust health that will enable him to radiate what he is in a distinct and compelling manner. It is in such a search for identity and in all deeds requiring personal self-assertion and emotional intensity that the Sun function will be called upon to operate most successfully. The negative aspect of this position may be pride and "in-solence."

In the second house the Sun tends to stimulate the production of inner or outer wealth, that is, the outpouring of collective, ancestral, or social energies into the personality; the result may be that these collective energies — which may manifest as money-will overpower the person's individuality, that they will use him instead of being used by him. Vitality can become possessiveness, "having" may overcome "being." On the other hand, the person may become an eminently successful manager of wealth and fulfill his individual destiny in this way.

In the third house solar vitality should stress the faculty of adaptation to the environment, which in its characteristically human sense is intelligence. Intellectual pursuits will draw an abundant flow of energy. Illuminating experiences can be reached through the power of the mind — a mind that is both analytical and clear. The Sun in the third house does not necessarily make a person an intellectual in the usual sense of the word. It can, however, make him a powerful force vitalizing all that surrounds him, like Abdul Baha, the son of the great Persian Prophet, who, during forty years of confinement in Akka, brought light and love to all his companions.

In the fourth house, the Sun stresses the vivifying power of inner experiences of personal integration, and in many cases suggests a vital contact with one's ancestry, home, and tradition. The roots of the personality are strong and experiencing their power may lead naturally and spontaneously to some kind of illumination. But concern with the home and the land may demand a great outpouring of energy. Self-reliance and a deep belief in one's "source" can be characteristic of such a solar position, but it may also mean that security has to be sought and fought for.

In the fifth house the Sun may, yet need not, reveal artistic creativity and radiant spontaneity in self-expression. The vital forces tend to express themselves in adventurous and perhaps speculative actions which are usually rich in emotional content but often egocentric and may represent merely a way out of inner pressures which seem intolerable. The love motive may be dominant — as in the case of the Duke of Windsor. There can also be a strong urge for the use of power and perhaps leadership, particularly in situations which call for intense vitality. One could cite the examples of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lenin.

In the sixth house the Sun may indicate the value in following the path of service, devotion, and discipleship, for a masterful individual may illumine that path. Hard work or concentration will draw energy from sources of strength deep within the individual. Crises and transforming events will be met with great stamina and faith. It should be evident to the person that such challenging events have to, and can successfully be met. A sense of dedication to a highly stimulating task is expected, but the Sun in the house which also refers to health and illness can signify the need to use one's will power for self-healing. It does not mean low vitality, but the focusing of vital energies for the purpose of overcoming some weakness, karma, or the result of misdeeds.

With the Sun in the seventh house, the vital forces tend to be stimulated mainly in the play of interpersonal relationships. The individual will normally reach the clearest realization of his basic life purpose by associating with others in partnership and in view of establishing a foundation on which a feeling of joint participation in a social purpose can be based. The individual may be a light to his partners, or he may discover his true vocation in dealing with matters of interpersonal relationship — as the psychologist Carl Jung did. In a negative sense he may be an autocrat who uses his partners to serve his goal of mastery. In any case, interpersonal relationships will demand and receive much attention; they will draw out the best in the individual, according to the character of his self and his destiny.

In the eighth house the Sun may bless the fruits of any relationship and all that increase and illumine the feeling of close union with and integration into a group process, a social or occult ritual. It may stimulate the capacity for business management, or for identification with any power or entity which seems able to help one pierce through the barrier of the known, the familiar, and the egocentric. It will spotlight the use one makes of the power born of relationship, and of what the recent past of one's race or society has made usable; thus the reference to legacies in this house.

In the ninth house the Sun illumines the understanding but also may indicate an all-consuming ambition. It vitalizes all attempts at self or group expansion. The lure of the foreign and the exotic may be great, and so also that of the mystical. Religions and philosophical pursuits are stressed because the vital drive is toward discovering the basis on which all social and cosmic relationships operate; thus the meaning of life and all events. "Great dreams" should be watched and studied. The danger is to become overpowered by bigness, or by megalomania, to lose contact with everyday facts.

As the tenth house is the field of achievement and of public or professional operations, the Sun in this house can mean outer success, leadership, social power and prestige. It may refer to having an illustrious father, or living in an authoritarian society. It can also mean that the basic energy of one's nature will be called upon more or less constantly to handle difficult, even negative situations. When a planet is in a house, problems may also arise with regard to the kind of power the planet represents. With this solar position, prominence is often gained through self-exertion, but in other instances there may be a natural, spontaneous, and irrepressible radiance in the personality which produces the fascinator of men.

The Sun may be found in the eleventh house of the birth chart of men whose urge for social or cultural reform or revolution is glowing at white heat, men who can bring new vitality to the social or cultural groups to which they belong. The energy of these men will be oriented more toward the future than toward the expected fulfillment of traditional patterns. They may be crusaders for a cause's were George Washington, Sun Yat-sen, or the writer Upton Sinclair. But they may also be excellent managers of social wealth and should treasure friendships and develop cultivated tastes.

The Sun in the twelfth house tends to throw light on the "unfinished business" of the past. The clearing up of karma may become a central life work, which may mean the cleansing of the subconscious and the repudiation of the ghosts of the unlived life — whether in terms of the concept of reincarnation or in relation to the first 28 or 56 years of this present life. The individual may need great solar energy to perform this task and his attention will be drawn to it again and again. Personal illumination may come while in jail or confined by physiological, social, or psychological crises. Power may come to the individual through identification with some great image of the collective unconscious, on the basis of which a new start may be made.

 

THE MOON in a house singles out the field of experience in which the ability to adjust to the challenges of everyday life is most likely to be required. The individual will have to feel his way cautiously, ready to make needed compromises and to take care not to be swayed too much by personal moods, or by the demands of those who depend upon him or her for guidance and "mothering."

In the first house this Moon faculty for adaptation and instinctive evaluation of opportunities and danger operates within a more or less well-defined individualistic structure. The individual needs this faculty — which may also manifest itself as reliance upon a Mother figure — in order to realize his uniqueness and his destiny. Experiences of self-discovery, under certain Moon aspects, may be fleeting and irrational. In a woman's chart the experience of mother-hood may be decisive and may structure the whole life.

With the Moon in the second house an individual has to use all his resources without rigidity, and remain open to what every day brings. If he is a public figure, an artist, or writer, public response will condition his financial situation. All money situations tend to be fluid. A person with the Moon in the second house may be very sensitive to the needs of the times and the demands of the collective unconscious.

A third house Moon should stimulate intellectual activity and the ability to find one's way in what may be a disturbed or chaotic environment. Relationships with siblings, and particularly with a female relative — or with women in general — may stir up the imagination and may guide the development of a keen intelligence. Objectivity is needed to complement feelings and dissipate moods.

In the fourth house the Moon refers largely to the mother's influence and the feeling one has toward one's home and tradition. The individual may often withdraw within his psychic foundations, perhaps for fear of meeting disturbing confrontations. A strong sensitivity to the feelings of people and to the psychic atmosphere of places in which one lives may be necessary for survival or peace of mind and soul; it also may cause problems, because of too subjective an approach to the hard realities of existence. An example of this is Helen Keller, who, though deaf and blind, with the help of a remarkable woman became a well-known person and a symbol of courageous adjustment.

The Moon in the fifth house can stress the poetic imagination, but also an unsteady emotional life, too open to impulses of passion. Yet the Moon function is needed there to act as the mother of children, or as the mystic Muse which inspires the artist or musician. A mother should avoid keeping her children in psychic bondage, even though they may greatly need her guidance.

In the sixth house the Moon can bring extreme personal sensitivity to the need for change and personal reorientation. The individual needs this Moon function to deal with problems of adjustment to often strenuous working conditions, or to poor health. In time of trouble he may yearn to be mothered, but instead he should depend on his own ability to adapt and to effect constructive compromises, even if this may appear to be mere expediency.

In the seventh house the Moon should provide the sensitivity needed to adapt oneself to a partner's idiosyncrasies and demands. Flexibility in matters of interpersonal relationships, particularly in marriage, is very important. The relationship itself should be nurtured, and even more care should be given to it than to the other partner. A partner should be selected who could respond to one's psychic projection, especially if the seventh house in a man's chart is being considered.

In the eighth house the Moon function can refer to the ability to foresee evolving trends in the field of business, and the need for taking a sensitive approach to popular moods. The Moon in this field of experience may be like a magic mirror reflecting unseen forces at work. But, if in strenuous aspects to some planets, this Moon can bring confusion, occult glamour, and a passivity to elemental forces. Guidance and an analytical practical mind should be most valuable.

The Moon in the ninth house indicates the potential ability to adapt to unfamiliar and perhaps exotic or transcendent conditions of existence, or to new concepts and symbols. This is a valuable lunar position for people engaged in large enterprises or in the search for metaphysical truths or abstract principles. It tends to enable the consciousness to reflect what the mind may not be able to analyze rationally. In some cases it can produce seership or a keen understanding of deep currents in politics, as well as the ability to formulate relevant plans of operation.

In the tenth house the Moon indicates a capacity for putting into operation large concepts or social plans when it is practical and above all expedient to do so. The needs of the moment and the mood of the public in regard to social or political affairs are cleverly assessed and adequate action easily follows, unless of course the Moon function is disturbed by other factors. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is a good example of a tenth house Moon, but with a strong Mars nearby challenging his public activity. Gandhi is another example.

In the eleventh house the Moon may either reflect the achievements of a society and its way of life, bringing the individual charming friends and relaxed feelings, or it may make this individual keenly aware of social injustices and failures, and focus a collective feeling of public discontent and perhaps rebellion. In Joan of Arc's traditional chart the Moon is conjunct Jupiter in this eleventh house — quite an appropriate situation for one whose "Voices" led to the resurgence of her invaded country and the birth of the French nation.

In the twelfth house the Moon can indicate a psychic gift, or the general ability to reflect in the mind the whole meaning of the transition between an ending cycle and the birth of a new one. All depends on what is done with this faculty. It can be overwhelming and confusing. It can precipitate karma, leading to a sort of closing of accounts. One must beware of a passive or defeatist attitude, and of too great an openness to the collective unconscious, or to one's personal complexes.

 

MERCURY in a house indicates the field of experience in which the power to communicate information, to remember the results and causes of past experiences, and to establish relationships between such experiences can operate with maximum effectiveness. What is also shown is the type of circumstances which will require the use of this Mercury power.

When this planet is in the first house, the person will tend to use his mental faculties to discover the nature of his essential being and destiny. He will see himself differentiated from other persons by his intellectual approach to his own problems. Much will depend upon whether the Sun is above or below the horizon. In the chart of the Hindu mystic Ramakrishna, Mercury and Jupiter are in the first house, but at his birth the Sun and Moon were conjunct in the twelfth house, which therefore polarized his vital devotional energies.

In the second house there may be need to concentrate intellectually upon financial and managerial problems, or upon ways to make use of the foods for thought provided by one's culture, and perhaps to improve natural products or techniques of production or acquisition. Money may be made by means of intellectual efforts.

In the third house Mercury operates in a field of experience to which he is particularly well suited. Intellectual faculties, any learning process, and matters referring to the communication of information should be emphasized in evaluating and adjusting to one's environment. This is a fine position for experimentalists in science, like Louis Pasteur and Luther Burbank.

In the fourth house Mercury should be particularly effective as the power of intellectual concentration and also of discrimination in terms of what can best be used to provide a solid basis for personal security and strength of character. In some instances the mind in this house is dominated by national and religious traditions.

In the fifth house Mercury may bring literary abilities and the capacity to project one's emotional impulses in forms which can communicate them to other people. Creative impulse could nevertheless be too formalized and systematized, losing some of their spontaneity and directness. On the other hand, the mind may be swayed by emotions and ego drives.

In the sixth house Mercury tends to refer to the intellectual worker; or at least it shows the importance of using one's mind when at work, or when serving a cause or a great person to whom one is devoted.  As the sixth house relates to situations of crisis and self-transformation, the mind should be flexible, critical, discriminating, and able to bring objectivity to the emotional life — of others as well as of oneself. Examples of Mercury in the sixth house are Carl Jung, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and V. I. Lenin.

Mercury in the seventh house favors contacts with intellectuals and all activities that formalize interpersonal relationships — contracts and intellectual agreements of all types. The mind will grow and mature through human relationships more than by the study of books. One should be objective in and try to bring clarity to any relationship.

In the eighth house Mercury is needed to work out the practical details of contracts at all levels. It should lend objectivity to feelings of sharing and the search for the beyond. In that house Mercury may be transcendentalized and given greater depth, as was the case in the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science movement.

In the ninth house Mercury is called upon to define as clearly as possible abstract concepts or religious intuitions, or to plan carefully distant journeys and large-scale attempts at expansion. It may help to remember dreams and to relate unfamiliar experiences to one's individuality and purpose.

In the tenth house Mercury is likely to bring an intellectual basis to one's vocation. It should define clearly one's conscious participation in the community or in society as a whole. The mind tends to be drawn to social or professional problems which are in need of being solved and which the individual feels he can solve.

In the eleventh house Mercury may bring many valuable social contacts with individuals of intellectual stature. The mind should be used to study and criticize the past, and to plan for a better future. Friends may expect mental stimulation from you as well as intellectual advice. One should try to formulate clearly one's hopes and wishes.

In the twelfth house Mercury points to a life turned inward, a life of meditation perhaps dedicated to transcendent purposes, or forced to withdraw perhaps by society or by illness from outer activity. Much attention should be paid to intuitions, hunches, or inner guidance. The mind may be focused on dealing with social crises or injustices, or with one's own personal karma and sub-conscious urges.

 

VENUS in a house indicates the field of experience in which the desire for interpersonal relationships and the sharing of values will tend spontaneously and most effectively to operate, and also how this type of experience can release its fullest meaning for the person.

With Venus in the first house, a person will probably seek to discover his unique character and individual purpose in an open and magnetically attractive manner, for he will feel that this discovery involves his relationship to other people. Yet he will tend to relate to himself whatever he realizes in association with others. He above all wants what love experiences and cultural values can bring to him. He attracts others, but often in order to possess or integrate them with himself.

In the second house the possessive character of Venus is likely to be quite strong. The individual may find in himself the flowering of a significant trend arising from his cultural or ancestral past, bringing this past to a consummation. He should extract value and meaning from it; if it relates to wealth, he should let it operate in a harmonious and meaningful manner, not making love or meaning subservient to possessions.

With Venus in the third house a person may want to share value and love with people close to him, relatives and neighbors. Venus in that house brings a glow to the urge to make the best of one's environment. One should seek to beautify, harmonize, integrate this physical as well as psychological-social environment, and also to bring warmth to mere intellectual opportunism.

In the fourth house Venus tends to bring harmony to the home situation and to interpret one's sense of rootedness in a family, a land, a tradition in terms of one's responsibility to bring the values they contain to fruition. A certain degree of introversion may be valuable, for the individual has to impart meaning to his feelings.

Venus in the fifth house indicates that a person can best evaluate life and understand the significance of his own character when he goes forth in creative activity or reaches out to someone who will be a catalyst to the revelation of the archetypal truth of his being. The individual has to project himself outward in order to see his image reflected in someone else's eyes and love. This projection may be frustrated again and again, but the desire remains. It may mean self-projection in one's child; and if so, what must be avoided is over-attachment and possessiveness.

In the sixth house Venus casts a glow of hope and faith upon the trials of periods of transition, because the critical state between two conditions can more easily be given meaning in terms of the whole process of existence. Service may be pervaded with love, the routine of work by mutual understanding between employee and employer. The disciple's emotional life can be concentrated upon and indeed surrendered to the Master, but this usually involves a difficult ego-transcending and emotional repolarization.

The seventh house theoretically is the field of experiences in which Venus can truly radiate, but Venus may also insist that all intimate relationship reveal their deepest significance and value. The quality of the relationship may be more important than the partner as an individual, yet without relationship life would seem barren. Discordant aspects to Venus may nevertheless give a negative or even sadistic aspect to the need for relationship. Adolf Hitler pre- sents an excellent example of a Venus operating along the path of destruction, for Venus was also the planetary ruler of his Libra Ascendant. Venus can devour as well as bless with love.

In the eighth house Venus can bring to fruition business deals and all contractual agreements. The sharing with partners is normally harmonious, but money may not be the only factor involved. Venus in this house should be used to cement with love the in members of a productive group or a group of seekers after transcendent realities. It should help to keep the meaning and value of the group clear and convincing.

To the typical experiences of the ninth house Venus should bring the sense of individual value which an ambitious person, or a man seeking to escape into exotic or pseudo-mystical realms of consciousness, can easily lose. But Venus in that house can add glamour and excitement to any adventure or long journey. It can give to a creative artist an imagination inspired by religious, metaphysical, or cosmic vistas.

In the tenth house Venus may be an indication of an artistic vocation or, more generally, of the capacity to organize and integrate groups of people—or materials — and give them significant form. This is a good position for a charming and intelligent woman who wants to have a salon where important people meet. She can then play a significant role by bringing together the right people for the right purpose — as she sees it.

Venus in the eleventh house can be a powerful magnet, establishing fields of attraction in which human beings can enjoy and profit from the results of their public or professional activities, whether as real friends or as persons sharing a common ideal within a common culture. The love of beauty and the arts, or a deep feeling for people crushed by society can be experienced. Venus in this house is the great humanitarian as well as the refined man of culture. Collective values are likely to be more meaningful than personal values.

In the twelfth house Venus may represent either dependence upon traditional values and profits from state institutions, or the individual's attempt to fathom the meaning of both his own past and his society's accomplishments, perhaps mainly in order to have a significant basis for making a new start. If ill-aspected, Venus in the twelfth house can refer to emotional complexes which need to be investigated and overcome, perhaps in a place of retreat or confinement

 

MARS in a house reveals the field of experience, and thus the circumstances, in which physical strength, initiative in the pursuit of what one desires, and some degree of aggressiveness can most successfully be applied in terms of a person's individual destiny or dharma.

Mars energy in the first house can best be used to pierce beyond appearances and to force one's way to the center of one's innermost being. More generally the search for a self-image may be pursued most effectively through personalized forms of activity, by involving oneself wholly in what one attempts to do. A good example is President Theodore Roosevelt whose "big stick" policy gave strong impulse to American expansionism. Roosevelt was a weak child, and probably overcompensated by becoming a symbol of aggressiveness.

Mars in the second house does not mean lack of money, as some astrologers claim, but rather a constant outflow of money which may leave nothing in reserve. A person assumes risks in the management of his resources and may perhaps follow irrational impulses. Everything has to be used and the Mars function may thus become over-personalized and involved in material values. A person with Mars in the second house may be a financial genius, or a mere spendthrift.

Mars in the third house indicates the need for initiative and courage in matters affecting the environment. Conversely, it may reveal the influence of an aggressive sibling, relative, or neighbor who challenges a person to use his or her capacity for intellectual agility and quick action. The mind should be sharp and analytical, perhaps caustic when its beliefs are attacked. Dante, Victor Hugo, Pasteur, and Harold Wilson had Mars in the third house.

In the fourth house Mars may refer to a home life in which the individual has to meet situations arousing his emotions and causing irritation; these may challenge him to be positive. The urge to fight against a perverted tradition may be evident, as in the case of Martin Luther. The individual may seek to go deeper and deeper in order to discover a solid foundation for his personal activities, regardless of obstacles or family pressures.

Mars in the fifth house which refers to emotional outgoing and self-expression, tends to give unusual force and impetuosity to a person's desires. It may stress the use of the will and the value of wholehearted self-projection and risk-taking. It should stimulate the power of faith and the artistic imagination. The purpose to which the will and imagination are directed depends on the level at which the individual operates. Both Lenin and Pope Pius XII had such a Mars position.

Mars in the sixth house often indicates a natural drive to overcome personal handicaps — perhaps physical ones — and the will to transform oneself through work, retraining, service, and/or discipleship. If there is a concern with ill health, it is because illness is seen as a challenge to seek healing or a higher form of well-being. Mary Baker Eddy had her Mars in this house and founded the Church of Christian Scientists based on faith, will, and the denial of evil.

A person with Mars in his seventh house may rush eagerly toward any form of close association. He should display initiative in interpersonal relationships and seek partners in whom he can arouse devotion to a cause which his imagination and faith may have envisioned. Difficulties with partners will be challenges to use his will for power, or survival.

In the eighth house Mars indicates the need to take an aggressive or at least forceful, attitude in business, and to arouse a group of associates to action. In this position Mars is the leader of social or occult rituals, often impulsive and reckless in driving others to a goal.

In the ninth house Mars evokes the need to push forward with indomitable strength and courage in all great quests, be it the search for gold, for power, or truth, or for a God experience. This position should favor prosecutors and lawyers, and politicians during a period of national expansion; it reveals the inner drive that made Disraeli a symbol of British expansionism.

Tenth house experiences can be energized by Mars, the power that drives the individual to public achievements and fame. There may be antagonisms to overcome, but a good fight is welcome. Success will be achieved mainly through initiative, courage, and faith. A person's energy will tend to be mobilized for public purposes. Examples, again, are President Franidin D. Roosevelt and the composer Richard Wagner.

In the eleventh house Mars should be used as will power in any struggle for the realization of one's ideals. One may have to be very positive in friendship, or in the promoting of cultural or spiritual goals. This may mean trouble and/or intellectual controversies which will become quite animated and emotional. This is a good position for reformers and critics of social injustice.

A person with Mars in the twelfth house may push to the limit his revolt against society or against what is found in his unconscious, or in some cases in the collective unconscious of mankind. Mars power can be used to pierce through old illusions or "karmic deposits" — witness the case of the great Indian political leader, yogi, and poet Sri Aurobindo — to redeem and transfigure the past, or simply to claim one's due from social institutions.

 

JUPITER in a house does not need to indicate "good fortune" in matters signified by this house. It reveals what is the field of experience in which the drive toward a greater, more expansive, fuller life can most significantly be focused. Jupiter essentially symbolizes human fellowship and the increase in well-being or power which result from togetherness and cooperation.

SATURN is in most ways the polar opposite of Jupiter, for it represents the drive to self-limitation in order to ensure greater security and a more concentrated type of activity; yet because man is basically a social entity, the Saturn function finds its true field of operation as the result of the operation of the Jupiter function, that is, in the field of social relationship. Saturn makes a man secure in the fact that his society accepts him and guarantees his place in it, his name, his signature.

In the first house, Jupiter indicates that there will be self-discovery through the use of personal authority and managerial power. The guru realizes his "divinity" as he expands his consciousness within the circle of his chelas or devotees; the manager needs social activities which demand to be managed. Thus there is a basic dependence on the use of traditional values which are valid for the group.

Saturn, on the other hand, when in this first house, reveals the need to define for oneself and by oneself what one is. There tends to be an attachment to form and to whatever brings concreteness to intuitions and inner promptings. But such an attachment shows that survival or sanity may depend on clear definition and focus. No position of Saturn is "bad"; Saturn does not bring negative results to the type of experiences that the house signifies. It simply tells what is best to be done with such experiences, and where the self-protective, self-focusing power of Saturn will operate most significantly.

In the second house Jupiter tends to bring to the experience of ownership a feeling of abundance, perhaps even at times of satiety. The Jupiter function is called upon to manage physical or psychic wealth in terms of its accepted social use. The owner should see himself as a trustee of this wealth for society, because the value of his possessions is social in nature. The selfish enjoyment of privileges represents the negative aspect of this Jupiter position.

When Saturn is in the second house this does not imply an absence of possessions, but a crystallization of the concept and feeling of ownership. The inertia of past social habits prevails because the individual feels insecure. His task is to concentrate his sense of ownership where he can feel secure, which may mean within himself. He should not seek expansion into ever vaster new fields, but he should attempt to focus traditional values and energies around his own center. The old miser is the caricature of such a goal.

In the third house Jupiter should bring expansiveness to the experiences related to this field. The intelligence should use broad social and moral or religious ideas in seeking a not only satisfactory but expansive adaptation to the demands of the environment. A person should meet all opportunities for experimenting, learning, or communicating information in a spirit of good fellowship and social participation; the mind should not only collect but integrate data in large classes, to serve as a basis for abstract generalities and principles of organization.

On the contrary, Saturn in this house is meant to teach the individual how to concentrate on essentials and to develop caution, objectivity, and an economy of means in formulating or communicating knowledge. The immediate environment in which the individual destiny is to unfold may be dangerous, or the person over- sensitive to its pressures. The youthful ego must be insulated or protected to allow wholesome growth.

In the fourth house Jupiter reveals the need to broaden the social basis of the personality and to socialize the home life. The experiences related to personality growth and the identification of the consciousness with some kind of tradition or land will acquire their highest significance if met with optimism and trust in the cooperation of all people involved. Negatively this may mean pride in one's ancestors or family estate, and the over-acquisitiveness of a somewhat inflated ego; or if not pride and bombast, then a longing to gather people around oneself in a court of admirers.

Saturn in this fourth house tends to restrict home life, to draw a person's energies back to their central point of origin and to over-structure the consciousness, forcing upon it a strict moral code or set ego-pattern generated by insecurity or fear. But this can be valuable if required for living in terms of a secure and well-ordered sense of values. The individual should not venture beyond his own depth and should carefully feel the ground under his feet. 

Saturn in the fourth house may indicate a karmic condition at home and heavy pressure from parents, but Jupiter can bring even more trouble through an overoptimistic mind and a deep-rooted craving for "big things."

In the fifth house Jupiter evokes the possibility of a warm and generous love life involving persons of wealth or of expansive temperament. The individual should have faith in his eventual success even through hard times. Education and teaching may be fertile fields of activity for him. He may feel that he has a social mission to perform, whereas it may be only that such a belief actually serves to magnify his every attempt at ego expression. The Jupiter function focused in the fifth house may imply an urge for personal gratification, and self-indulgence through another person who is seen as only a means to that end.

Saturn, on the other hand, restrains the urge to self-expression and risk-taking in love and speculation or gambling, because there is an innate sense of danger and an insecurity that manifests itself as shyness and social withdrawal. Yet Saturn in this place can also give much greater depth to creative activity, even if it restricts production to a small number of works or to very select or technical fields. The individual's handicaps, however, can become the very basis for his success or fame — witness the deaf-blind Helen Keller.

Jupiter in the sixth house can easily bring to the fore the relationship between employer and employee or guru and chela. It may produce warmth of understanding and sympathy without detracting from a sense of responsibility, or from the authority of the one who is discharging this responsibility. Interest or involvement in labor problems or in all forms of healing is to be expected. The individual in a state of transformation or crisis should have hope and faith; and the healer or guide should be totally dedicated to his work. A sense of self-importance and the exaction of some form of worship should be avoided, at least in our western society.

Saturn in the sixth house tends to stress feelings of deficiency in health, strength, or social abilities and thus indicates the need for training or retraining, self-discipline, and a pure or restricted way of life. It may be good to train and exercise the will, but this may make the character rigid and the ego more powerful. Avoid trans-forming discipline into a rigid dependence upon a fixed routine leaving no alternatives.

Jupiter in the seventh house reveals the value of an expansive approach to interpersonal relationships and a broad sense of human sympathy. The experience of partnership should be considered in the light of a social-cultural purpose, that is, as a foundation for a more effective participation in one's community or in society. If the individual's Ascendant should be Sagittarius, he will seek to discover his essential nature through relationship. He may want to relate either to people of many types, or to one person who can offer a wealth of possible avenues for the intimate sharing of ideas and energies — example: Carl Jung.

Saturn in that house refers to a restricted but perhaps most significantly focused feeling for interpersonal relationship. Security in relationship will require subservience to set patterns and traditional rituals. Some kind of innate fear or shyness has to be overcome through social mechanisms which protect the individual — or in some cases through a hard mask of aggressiveness. There may be a transference of the Father image to the husband or even to authoritarian social figures whose ambition may exact rigid obedience but also provide a strong purpose in life.

Jupiter in the eighth house points to the need to manage effectively and in broad terms the fruits of any partnership a person enters into. Society may place responsibilities upon him as a trustee of wealth. As leader of a group he will need understanding, empathy, and a sense of proportion and fair play. His innate social sense will seek situations in which he can work with a group and play a controlling part in some ritual activity.

Saturn in this house can also bring a person in relation to a group, but mainly for the purpose of finding greater personal security in sharing his problems and perhaps his fears with others while pursuing some kind of social work or performance. He may seek to corner as much group-generated power as he can, but he may also refuse to participate in anything concerning which he feels insecure, or which overwhelms his imagination. If he does participate, he may feel lonely and overburdened.

The ninth house refers to a field of experience in which Jupiter can shine in all its glory, either in terms of what feeds a strong social ambition and will-to-power, or in terms of an eager search for the understanding of the processes of existence, whether at the social, legal, historical, religious, or cosmic level. The mind — and also perhaps the ego — reaches toward ever larger fields to understand things and reduce them to manageable proportions or formulas. The danger may be fanaticism, or loss of individuality in too-big projects.

Saturn may accept the idea of expansion, but every step of the process has to be firmly secured. The abstract idea or mystical experience has to be concretized and personalized. The "God experience" of the illumined soul becomes in the hands of his followers an institutionalized set of symbols. Ambition tends to be limited by the ego to whatever certifies rank and position along traditional lines.

Jupiter in the tenth house demands that the individual aim for big roles in which social, political, or religious power is openly demonstrated and acclaimed. He may be born to such a social position — Queen Victoria — or may reach power and fame through years of effort — Victor Hugo, George Gershwin. Even if public recognition is not obtained, the goal of significant participation in community or universal human issues should be held vividly in the individual's consciousness as his essential destiny, though personal obstacles may have to be overcome.

Saturn in this house will also draw the individual's life toward some kind of social activity, but the results of this activity in many cases will serve primarily to bring to the ego an enduring sense of security and perhaps an unchallengeable position of strength. In some cases, nevertheless, this enthroned Saturn refers to the sharply focused use of social or political power for purposes which seem, at least at first, to be for the greatest good of a community or nation in a disturbed and disintegrating state. Hitler is a good example of this position of Saturn, as is perhaps Napoleon; also the English Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, and the founder of modern China, Sun Yat-sen. The traditional idea that a tenth house Saturn means political success ending in defeat certainly need not apply in all cases. Besides, what is important in humanistic astrology is not the event but the state of consciousness of the individual. Napoleon, Disraeli, and Hitler "succeeded" in becoming great symbols in the history of the western world; they presumably fulfilled their destined roles.

Jupiter in the eleventh house indicates that the individual should direct his abilities toward the implementation and exteriorization of his ideals and his vision within society. Henry Ford is a good example of success in this line, as is the Mormon leader Brigham Young. The ideal, however, may be to enjoy a good life with friends after retirement, professional achievements having been thought of mostly in terms of the financial results and comfort they would bring in old age.

Saturn in this house emphasizes the personal motive, the value of friends and cultural contacts in providing secure enjoyment. While Jupiter in the eleventh house may work for important social transformation — Ford assuredly changed, directly or indirectly, the lives of billions of human beings — Saturn tends to indicate a conservative and traditional viewpoint and, as in the case of Queen Victoria, a rigid attitude. Even in meeting friends a person may feel the need to rely upon formalism and moral taboos, though the Saturn function may simply be used to give form to dreams or to symbolize death and depression.

In the twelfth house Jupiter can have many meanings according to what is or has been the most basic relationship of an individual to his society and to the culture of his period. It can bring wealth, honor, and comfort at the end of a cycle of experience that has witnessed a successful rise to a social position; it can lead compassionate and socially dedicated men and women to bring companionship and sympathy to people who have been battered by a ruthless society; it can make of some creative personalities symbols of the great achievements of a dosing cultural period — as Dante did toward the end of the Medieval era. The subconscious life of a person may be reorganized and dreams significantly integrated, or an inward-directed life of meditation may open the consciousness to spiritual guidance — especially in times of social crises — and perhaps to the will to sacrifice.

Saturn in the twelfth house may lead a person to give a concrete, visual, or audible form to subconscious images or inner pressures. There may be a deep sense of psychic insecurity calling for anything that would bring order and stability to a confused inner life, particularly if the social environment is chaotic, or has forced on him some form of isolation or exile. The twelfth house has been called "the house of karma and bondage" It need not be, but Saturn does stress the value of dealing with the "unfinished business" of the past. This may be interpreted by some as "past lives," whatever exactly is meant by these ambiguous terms.

 

As the planets beyond Saturn's orbit stay for a number of years in one sign of the zodiac, the positions they occupy in the houses of- a birth chart are particularly important. However, these are planets representing deep and radical processes of transformation, and the problem for the interpreter is to try to ascertain intuitively the way in which a person can respond to such processes and especially whether he or she is able to respond positively and constructively.

URANUS in a house indicates the type of experience which will allow the power of transformation and renewal within the individual's deepest being to operate most significantly. In  some cases the possibilities of radical transformation are small and the person would not be able to withstand more radical crises; but a crisis which may seem superficial can at times be merely the indication of a more far-reaching and total metamorphosis occurring below the conscious level. The transit of Uranus over a person's natal Sun is in nearly all instances with which I have ever dealt an indication of deep-seated change, but it is impossible to blow exactly how the change will manifest itself. It may be mainly a change of consciousness and attitude, or it may take the form of an apparently external crisis-inducing shock when actually the shock occurs because the individual's pattern of unfoldment, that is, his destiny, calls for it. The same uncertainty prevails when one tries to interpret the meaning of Uranus' position in any house. The following are therefore only very brief indications.

In the first house Uranus indicates that the individual will discover his essential truth or dharma mainly through crises challenging him to state, at least to himself, where he stands and what his goals are. The person may move from crisis to crisis, with each one perhaps bringing new illumination. Thus he or she may be a born reformer or leader in some cause challenging the status quo (Annie Besant, Mary Baker Eddy, Cromwell).

In the second house sudden events may alter a person's financial status, or genetic factors may induce physiological disturbances and crises. "The individual may abandon his family fortune and insist on financial independence, repudiating his past.

In the third house Uranus may produce a restless mind and an often-changing environment which demands a capacity for quick readjustment. The individual may welcome such changing conditions — example: Mutsu Hito, the Japanese emperor who presided over his country's change from feudalism to modern industry.

In the fourth house Uranus points to the possibility of becoming constructively uprooted, of becoming an agent for basic and thorough revolutionizing forces. Clinging to static home patterns or to a yearning for ego stability would be futile. Much depends here on what Saturn and the Moon indicate in the birth chart, for Uranus is the great foe of Saturnian security and normal adaptation to a steady environment.

With Uranus in the fifth house a person may develop inventiveness or originality in creative activity. He should not depend on traditional patterns or modes of expression but instead develop a new way, successful or not, of releasing his energies and making an impact upon his society — examples: Thomas A. Edison, the Irish poet and occultist William Butler Yeats, Swami Vivekananda, founder of the modem Vedanta movement.                

Uranus in the sixth house stresses the need to face crises with faith and determination. The will to transformation is called upon as the backwash of past failure or inefficiency is experienced. Illness should be seen as a test of growth. One should serve the future-in-the-making, not a present rooted in an obsolescent past. Example: Richard Wagner, apostle of the "Music of the Future," whose life was a long series of crises.

With Uranus in the seventh house an individual cannot be content with any entirely normal type of relationship, including marriage. He may deal as a psychologist with crises in interpersonal relationships — Carl Jung — or with the breaking down of collective patterns of association — George Washington, Sun Yat-sen. He should bring a new and free spirit to the principle of cooperative activity — Henry Ford and his assembly-line system of production.

Uranus in the eighth house demands a new way of managing business deals, an unfettered mind in approaching the search for the beyond and in working through groups. It stresses the need for radical changes in the operation of social processes — V. I. Lenin, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In the ninth house Uranus is called upon to revolutionize a person's mind and his traditional approach to organized religion or law. It may send the individual upon paths of physical or spiritual discovery. Nothing is too big or secure to be challenged, and this by often unconventional methods — Gandhi, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

In the tenth house Uranus indicates a public life which must resolutely, accept change or else be broken up — Stalin and Mussolini, the guillotined French queen, Marie-Antoinette. New concepts of social or professional organization should be implemented, and are needed for success. The tide of change may indeed be irresistible.

With Uranus in the eleventh house the individual is typically involved in social, political, or cultural ideals, in reform or revolution. He should make dynamic, stimulating friends who challenge him to transform his ideals — Victor Hugo, Disraeli.

In the twelfth house the Uranian drive may best be focused upon one's own subconscious motives and whatever complex may result from one's "unlived life." The stage should be cleared and set for rebirth, even if this has to be done in isolation or apparent defeat. A new stream of energy may be allowed to flood the inner life once it is fully opened to the future — Sri Aurobindo, who also had   Mars in this house. The individual becomes an agent for collective transformation.

 

NEPTUNE in a natal house transforms by dissolving all that remains of the past, but it holds within this dissolution and depersonalization the subtle outlines of a wider and more inclusive future — perhaps what often is called a Utopia.  

As experiences related to the first house are normally centered upon what constitutes an individual's uniqueness and difference from other individuals, Neptune in that house indicates that this is  not  the way  to  reach  one's  highest  truth  of  being.  The  attention should rather be directed to the whole of which he is a part; or his consciousness should give up all  feeling of being focused and, as it were, allow the universe to enter. Thus the sense of self, at least theoretically, would become universalized. Negatively, this may lead to mediumship and a blurred self-image, and perhaps to a dependence upon psychedelic drugs. It may lead to an immense compassion for the underprivileged and the oppressed — Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables — or it may indicate the presence of valuable psychic gifts.

Neptune in the second house tends to dissolve the normal feeling of possessiveness. One may rely upon society or life in general to supply what one needs. In other cases, the individual may deliberately make himself a channel through which collective forces and movements can act without interference.

With Neptune in the third house a man should allow his concrete mind and his adjustments to his environment to be illumined or transfigured by collective or mystical forces. He may become the mouthpiece for revelations which could challenge the very quality of his environment. For Carl Jung this meant a continued openness to the collective unconscious throughout his life.

In the fourth house Neptune challenges a person to give up reliance upon tradition and family patterns — the Duke of Windsor — perhaps in the name of a glamorous ideal or personal fascination. But it may also mean using collective needs to establish a broader foundation of existence, or the incentive to spread oneself over a large field of experience. Henry Ford did this, at least symbolically, and his popular car was instrumental in breaking down the limits of the home scene.

A person with Neptune in the fifth house may be attracted by glamorous adventures and unsound risks. He may strive to impress his community by giving it what it craves rather than to exteriorize his own individual truth of being. Neptune in the fifth house may indicate musical or theatrical gifts, or a facile approach to love experiences.

In the sixth house Neptune helps to dissolve ego pride and to make one experience, through personal crises, a deep sense of catharsis. One should seek to serve humanitarian causes, to develop compassion, to heal or allow healing forces to make one whole. In Gandhi's chart it indicated the technique of nonviolence and the use of "Truth-force" — Satyagraha.

A person with Neptune in the seventh house may find it difficult to focus his attention upon one single partnership. He may want to neither possess nor be possessed by another. New ideals of interpersonal relationship should illumine the consciousness. Here humanitarianism is extolled and the search for a transcendent union can be all-absorbing — Richard Wagner.

In the eighth house Neptune can be used to universalize involvement in group rituals and mass productivity. It tends to fuse the consciousness of the participants in a mystical experience of superpersonal oneness. At the level of business it stresses the value of propaganda, and of "hidden persuaders." It may lead to illusory states of paradise.

In the ninth house Neptune is the lure of mysticism or psychedelic experiences and the urge to reach the "unitive state" of cosmic or theocentric consciousness. For a more down-to-earth individual, it may lead to a healing profession, especially spiritual healing. It may drive a few persons to the sea and its vast horizons.

In the tenth house we see Neptune pervading the public life with a social consciousness that reaches for distant boundaries and seeks an ideal community. On the way, the individual may accept socialism as a means to an end. The glamour of the life of society may also be attractive.

With Neptune in the eleventh house a person tends to have broad and humanitarian ideals, and to dream of beautiful Utopias. Experiences related to music and the arts which present more or less abstract and transcendent ideals should be most valuable. One may be attracted to idealistic or highly social friends.

Neptune in the twelfth house may present the individual with the faculty of dissolving the ghosts and memories of the past, or it may give psychic gifts and the ability to tap vast but perhaps imprecise stores of knowledge. Subconscious images and prenatal drives may intrude upon the consciousness. Compassion for the afflicted and those who our society allows to drop out and languish may bring ennobling experiences.

 

PLUTO can remain in a zodiacal sign for many years and as a result it primarily represents the style of life of a period, or of a generation. In the birth chart of an individual the position of Pluto in a house tends to indicate in what field of experience the person will make his or her greatest contribution to his society, and ultimately to mankind. Nothing much more can be said of its house position because people may not react to what this symbol of the twentieth-century type of human being signifies. When effective, it usually implies experiences of a deep-reaching and irreducible or irrepressible type. It tends to finalize the process of transformation which Uranus began, but in so doing it opens the door to a new phase of the evolution of consciousness. What comes through that door may be blinding and awesome to the normal consciousness of ego-centered man.

Briefly stated, a person with Pluto in his first house will contribute most to his society by emphasizing the uniqueness of his individuality. He may focus collective or spiritual forces, and he should try to do this thoroughly, uncompromisingly. With Pluto in the second house a person should contribute the possessions and abilities latent in his total physical-psychic being. These abilities, inherited from the ancestral past, through him may be given a new value for mankind. With Pluto in the third house a person's capacity to deal significantly with his environment — his intelligence and ability to communicate information — may be the greatest thing he can pass on to those who know him.

With Pluto in the fourth house a person's most valuable contribution to society should be the capacity, which may be demonstrated by his personal life, to integrate diverse energies and drives in a wholesome and powerful personality. Integration here implies either exemplifying in a new statement of being the traditional roots of a solid cultural attitude, or discovering and drawing inner strength and security from a strictly individual center. With Pluto in the fifth house a person could have a creative destiny to fulfill, if he lets no lesser goal distract his attention and lead him into emotional bypaths. His creations would then be his most significant contribution. With Pluto in the sixth house the capacity to work steadily and undistractedly, and the will to serve in utter dedication, would be his greatest contribution, even if the work itself may be unimportant in an absolute sense.

If Pluto is in the seventh house the ability a person has to relate closely to his partners — but in terms of principles and social purposes rather than on an emotional-personal basis — can be his greatest contribution. He may set a new tone to human contacts and thus to social processes. In the eighth house Pluto may deal with one kind of ritual or another. To prove that in their togetherness human beings can produce new values and release transcendent energies can be the greatest contribution a person born with such a Pluto position can make. With Pluto in the ninth house a person can contribute most valuably the experiences and intellectual or spiritual realizations he has reached in his search for ultimate values and meanings.

With Pluto in the tenth house a person's characteristic participation in the affairs of his community and in the "work of the world" should be his most meaningful contribution, for it is his way of integrating the two polarities of existence, the individual and the collective. Pluto in the eleventh house tends to give a definite and perhaps fateful character to a man's ideals and to his vision of better things to come for himself and his companions. If he can exemplify an unswerving and total concern for and concentration upon these ideals, that very fact can be a major contribution to the nobility of man. In the twelfth house Pluto places his stamp upon the terminal features of a cycle of experience. To accept this "judgment" and face its consequences courageously and undeviatingly is a most significant and creative contribution to the typical human capacity to learn from defeat, as well as from fulfillment, and on that basis to move forward from cycle to cycle.*

*For a study of the meaning given to the positions of the Moon's nodes in a birth chart, cf. The Planetary and Lunar Nodes (Humanistic Astrology Series No. 5).

 

The Astrological Houses

 

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