"After all these years of working as an astrologer,

it's unusual to find newly illuminating material to conceptualize and explore."

- Hadley Fitzgerald
"It is inspiring how you see charts so clearly. Your workshops have taken me to a whole new
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NOTES ON ESSENTIALS OF ASTROLOGY:

THE SIXTH HOUSE – PSYCHOLOGY OF SELF-INTEGRATION
By Robert Glasscock

Copyright 2013 Robert Glasscock

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 Table of Contents
Occupation, Co-Workers and Health
Work, Health and the Midheaven Triad
Fame and Fortune
Gateway to Psychological Self-Integration
Jung and Astrology Side-by-Side
Morality and Individuation
Divergence and Details
Ask Alice
All About Alice
Before Time Began
Archetypes in the Present Moment
The Last Laugh
The Sixth House and the Other
Jungian Types and the Sixth Cusp
Signs on the Sixth House - Elements and Qualities
Fire Signs and the Sixth - Intuition (Perceiving)
Earth Signs and the Sixth - Sensing (Perceiving)
Air Signs and the Sixth - Thinking (Judging)
Water Signs and the Sixth - Feeling (Judging)
The Shadow
A Man
Planets in the Sixth
Sun in the Sixth House
Moon in the Sixth House
Mercury in the Sixth House
Venus in the Sixth House
Mars in the Sixth House
Jupiter in the Sixth House
Outer Planets in the Sixth House
 Uranus in the Sixth House
Neptune in the Sixth House
Pluto in the Sixth House
About the Author
Online
Other Titles
 Occupation, Co-Workers and Health

The Sixth house is often treated like the runt of the litter in astrology. It is vaguely said to rule
"health, occupation, co-workers, small animals, clothing, servants" and that’s about it. You've
got problems with your chauffeur, cook, butler, Fido or Fluffy? Look to the Sixth. For anything
else, move on to another more interesting house like those having to do with love and marriage
and sex and money.
Perhaps astrologers give this Cadent house short shrift because vocational analysis is a complex
and demanding topic and 'health' even more fraught with potential pitfalls – not least the
potential to psychologically damage clients by 'predicting' illnesses or accidents that may never
eventuate, or even risk lawsuits for 'practicing medicine' without a license.
You can avoid both traps once you fully understand – and help clients understand – all that is
truly revealed by one of the most important (in many ways the most important) houses in the
horoscope.
The Sixth house essentially shows psychological self-integration. As the last of the Personal
houses (below the Ascendant-Descendant horizon), it amalgamates, analyzes, collates, defines,
refines, makes sense of and decides what to do with the first five houses before it.
The Sixth summarizes, characterizes and establishes the psychological foundation based on the
first 12½ to 15 years of life, on which all future development in adulthood is built. Only by
evolving through the Sixth house do we emerge into the Seventh to engage and join the
increasingly Collective houses (above the horizon) by integrating with The Other(s).
If we shrug off the Sixth house in life as we often do in astrology, we're forever at the mercy of a
superficial and immature understanding of psychological self-integration, like kids pretending to
be grownups.
The Sixth house depicts our developmental responses to the five previous house archetypes of
growth – from birth at the First house; through early sensory development (pleasure and pain
through food, touch and sounds) and finding our voice (cooing or crying) in the Second;
discovering our limbs, mobility and minds, distinguishing waking from sleeping realities
(dreams and nightmares), and communicating with our environment in the Third; confirming our
sense of emotional security, continuity and heritage through our family identity in the Fourth;
learning and socializing from kindergarten through junior high school in the Fifth; then putting it
all together into a coherent whole (or not) in the Sixth prior to entering the larger collective
houses of adulthood at the Seventh with our first serious love, our initiation into sex (Eighth),
gaining higher education and training toward contributing to society (Ninth), and beginning to
establish our career path at the Tenth, around age 21-22.
For the rest of our lives we mature atop the foundation of our Sixth house psychological self-
integration or lack of it. By progression or solar arc, the Sixth house cusp, ruler and any planets
in it will develop through other archetypal layerings. Yet our Sixth house foundation remains our
Rosetta Stone for personal self-integration.
More than any other archetypes in the horoscope, including Sun, Moon, Ascendant or any single
planet or point, the Sixth house reveals the psychology underlying people’s modus operandi –
how they deal with life. Everything else finds its integration or disintegration here – including
relationships, sex, vocation, education, mental and physical health, careers, friendships, goals,
social pursuits, even illnesses and finally death.
But wait: aren’t all those shown elsewhere in the horoscope? Certainly. Their characteristics
may be examined in greater detail through other focal houses, but their underlying integration
into a cohesive whole (or not) remains rooted in the Sixth by age 15.
So-called 'senseless' actions – 'senseless' killings, 'senseless' divorces, 'senseless' suicides,
'senseless' affairs, 'senseless' impulses – make perfect sense when the Sixth house is considered
and understood.
We’d best be fully conscious of what the Sixth house shows lest we relegate our psychologies to
unconscious forces – what we are pleased to project and call 'Fate.'
If you’re beginning to realize that 'Fate' is often nothing more than the intersection of genetic
heredity with unconscious, unacknowledged predispositions and the belief-systems that develop
from them, you’re far ahead of the game.
Before concentrating on the few crucial umbrella archetypes that constitute the core importance
of the Sixth house, review its more mundane meanings.

Service – the first concept listed – is actually one of the most important concepts of the Sixth
house, as we’ll see, though in a far greater psychological and metaphysical understanding than
waitresses, barbers, hairdressers, bathroom attendants and mechanics; valuable as those jobs
and careers are.
What is truly indicated at the Sixth house are our beliefs about what Service is and what it
means – through contributions to society in exchange for rewards that validate our worth and
existence. Beliefs about Service may take high roads or low: Nobel prizes, Mafioso infamy,
leading nations or digging ditches.
Health and sickness or 'dis-ease' in general are indicated initially at the Sixth house (and by
reflex squares or oppositions in the other Cadent houses). Any prescribed medical regimen is
also shown in the Sixth. The physician herself, in consultation, is shown in the Seventh, as are
all professional consultants. The physician as a mental or physical health authority over our
daily routine and regimen is shown at the Tenth.
The Sixth house also rules everything connected with food: farming, planting and harvesting,
processing and packaging, distribution and marketing, grocery stores and restaurants. It reveals
much about an individual's appropriate and inappropriate dietary and eating habits, exercise and
how the body processes food.
Dispensing with still more common meanings of the Sixth:

Note how these traditional meanings of the Sixth house gradually become more collective.

Now we finally reach the most profound meanings of the Sixth house and encounter its deepest
functions.
Since the Sixth house forms an inconjunct (150º) angle to the Ascendant, it requires various
degrees of adjustments throughout life during ever-changing circumstances and interpersonal
transactions, nutrition and aging: refinement, in other words – physical and psychological.
Knowing the body's organic functioning, to some extent, helps greater understanding of the
houses’ synchronicity with physical organs and processes. Almost all of us have at least a
rudimentary understanding of major bodily organs and their functions. That knowledge can help
clarify corresponding functions in the psyche. The human body is a physical projection and
metaphor for all astrological archetypes at work in one’s life on physiological, emotional and
psychological levels – the holistic (or whole-istic) mind-body connection in pop parlance.
The function of the Sixth house has much in common with Virgo, the sixth sign, and the organs of
digestion. It also says a great deal about our beliefs about our overall psychological and mental
health, our self-image (contrasted with the persona we show the world at our Ascendant) as well
as our physical health.
The Ninth house has to do with the formal study of psychology and medicine. But the Sixth is
where psychology and physical health are experienced pragmatically and personally.
Exploring the houses and signs working through the physical body is instructive, since we all
have bodies and organs. Studying them through astrology helps us be conscious of our organic
processes; the nutrients or lack of them that we feed our bodies; and how our physical selves are
metaphorically linked with all other internal and external symbolism in astrology.
The Sixth house corresponds to the intestines and digestive system: the organs and processes by
which our bodies access and assess, discriminate, absorb, assimilate, filter and use the nutrients
we take in, passing them on for further filtration and balancing (Seventh house; kidneys) and
final elimination of waste byproducts (Eighth house; Scorpio).
"Garbage in, garbage out" goes the Digital Age maxim. It applies mentally, psychologically,
emotionally and physically.
If digestive processes are bollixed in the Sixth house, every subsequent organic and functional
process – from Seventh through Twelfth houses in the Natural Wheel; from Libra through Pisces
– and on around through the Ascendant – is compromised.
Breakdown of nutrients into chemical compounds and glandular secretions – a minutely detailed
Virgonian and Sixth house process of fine discrimination and separation – takes place here. If
something is blocked or goes wrong, through hard aspects, even barely, resulting biochemical
and electromagnetic imbalances can affect the brain and other organs and seep into every other
bodily process – hopefully to be further refined, balanced or compensated for in Libra and the
Seventh house, or eliminated in Scorpio and the Eighth.
Psychologically, the Sixth house indicates the identical digestive processes in the psyche. The
Natural Sixth house Earth sign, Virgo, is ruled by Mercury, which also rules the Air (Thinking)
sign and Natural Third house sign of Gemini, archetypally linking the mind and body.
Astrologers have always recognized this mind-body connection which medical science has come
to acknowledge fully only in the past six or seven decades (and still not as fully or intimately as
astrology suggests).
Like all houses in the chart, the Sixth must be considered from two or three perspectives: in the
Natural Wheel (zero degrees of Aries on the First cusp), the Solar Chart (the Sun on the First
cusp) and the (timed / rectified) Birth Chart. The Sixth house in any of these charts always
shows any potential for gastrointestinal problems, for example, as well as other pointers to
potential health or dis-ease issues. The sign on the Sixth cusp often identifies particular organic
functions that require attention during an individual's life. Hard aspects to planets in Virgo or the
other three signs in the Mutable Cross (or Cadent houses) may similarly reflect stress and
potential dis-ease. Finally, stress aspects to any planetary archetype anywhere in the horoscope
may also indicate potential disease, mental or physical. But the Sixth is the gateway for entry
into all such analysis of charts.
The Sixth house indicates eating habits, patterns and potential nutritional problems or
deficiencies, along with the Moon and Venus. Hard aspects indicate problems, lacks, excesses,
allergies, toxins, injuries, infections, obstructions and blockages. But easy aspects (in their
dis-ease potentials) can also denote excesses (too much 'harmony,' 'comfort,' lethargy, calories,
sugar, etc.).
This is not a book on medical astrology. But these basic general principles are important to
understand in evaluating psychological self-integration – which is this book’s topic.
Nor is this a book on vocational astrology. But it is essential to understand how the Sixth house
intimately links all three: psychological self-integration with work and health.
More specifically, the sign on the Sixth, planets located there, aspects to them and to the ruler(s)
of the Sixth, can indicate individualized organs and processes – physiological and psychological
'temperament' – that may need attention and adjustments through health issues arising during life.
Those in turn will directly affect vocational choices and success or frustration through work.
All of this psycho-physiological synthesis of self, of how to go out into life and contribute to the
collective through service, is shown at the Sixth.
For instance, simplistically yet accurately, Gemini on the Sixth indicates the lungs as organs
whose health may require attention in life. Smoking is risky for anybody. But some smokers go a
lifetime without exhibiting serious effects (maybe they don’t smoke much). Those with Gemini
on the Sixth, however, should be aware of their risks for COPD, emphysema and lung cancer as
well as lung infections, pneumonia, asthma, etc.
But Gemini’s archetype on the Sixth goes much further. It rules 'inhalation' and 'exhalation'
emotionally and psychologically as well as physically: what we take in from the environment
(including people) and give out to it.
Gemini rules all 'tubes' in the body including limbs, the neck, nerves, veins and arteries. It rules
'connectingness.' It rules sight and hearing, our visual and auditory 'connections' with our
environment. It rules communication, another process of 'connectingness.'
Gemini on the Sixth cusp suggests the importance of being aware of potentials for dis-ease or
stress affecting all those processes in addition to the lungs: eyesight and hearing, neurological
disorders, esophageal disease, conditions (including accidents or injuries) affecting the limbs
and joints, arthritis, muscular dystrophy, duodenal ulcers, appendicitis, multiple sclerosis and so
on.
Obviously, much more is required from studying astrology's planetary and aspect archetypes to
truly reflect predispositions for such diseases (along with hereditary histories, exposure to
toxins and pollutants, etc.), but Gemini's archetype on the Sixth cusp lays the groundwork for
awareness of those potentials, to be strengthened or lessened elsewhere in the chart.
Gemini's archetype on the Sixth exactly replicates those potentials metaphorically in the psyche:
psychological and / or physiological potentials for problems in communication – stuttering, say,
or passive-aggressive behaviors, 'inflamed' communications (like organic inflammations) or
'injurious' or 'toxic' communications including potentials for violent speech and actions,
backbiting and lying, or for weakness and self-victimizing behaviors, disjointed or contaminated
rather than smooth and clear thinking and communications, and so on.
Through further examination and refinement of astrology’s archetypes in horoscopes, the
likelihood of any such possibilities affecting physical or mental health may be narrowed much
more specifically and the timing afforded by transits and solar arcs used to highlight specific
cycles for increased attention to them.
So the Sixth house is enormously important for assessing physical and psychological health and
dis-ease. That includes one’s overall psychological self-integration (one’s capacity for and
approach to individuation in the Jungian sense, about which more later).
It's essential to gain at least a basic understanding of how each planetary, sign and aspect
archetype in astrology correlates to psychological and physiological processes because the
integration of self, physically and mentally, and how we enter life as adults, is shown through the
Sixth.
Ideally, we "follow our bliss" indicated by the Fifth house of "love, pleasure and creativity,"
where we learn and identify what we most love to do, carried through to our Sixth house choices
in occupation – which can be considered a Second house 'resource' of the Fifth house of bliss.
Every house is the Second of resources from its preceding house. The archetypal implication is
to assimilate and refine our Fifth house bliss (those pursuits that bring us joy) and offer it as our
'service' through the Sixth. This can be positive or negative 'service' (if our 'bliss' is neurotic,
misunderstood, repressed or pathological – as in sociopathic and psychopathic psychologies of
self-integration).
Just as the Second house in a natal or Natural Wheel chart shows our overall 'money,' or
resources, and how we handle them, the Sixth shows 'money' or resources through natural talents
and loves shown at the Fifth.
Joseph Campbell’s advice to "follow your bliss" is well taken if we want to be healthy, happy
and live harmoniously and fruitfully. We may or may not be 'wealthy' (a vague term in any case
that depends entirely on an individual’s definition), but we will be comfortable.
Our hobbies, pastimes, creativity, play, pleasures, and so on are tremendously valuable clues to
where we find bliss. They identify those qualities we can optimally educate, train, develop and
follow for happiness, health and success through our life’s work – spiritually, emotionally and
materially.
But there's more to following your bliss than meets the eye, if you want a sustainable career. And
these essentials too are primarily indicated by the Sixth house, its ruler(s) and planets in it.
What is a sustainable career? It's one that makes use of all your skills, year after year, and keeps
challenging you to learn and perfect new ones. It's a career that gives you a sense of meaning.
You're excited about chances to learn and develop. The people you work with energize you.
Your talents and skills are valued in the marketplace and make you confident. You have access
to opportunities through your network of colleagues and contacts. And you can integrate all the
other important areas of your life – family, friends, recreation.
If your definition of success is all about money, power and position you may need to rethink
keeping up with the Buffetts and Trumps. Ultimately, success is about living the life you want,
not the life others want for you or the life you settle for.
Note how the following five practical ways to build a happy sustainable career all relate to the
Sixth house.
1. Be aware and observant of your daily experience at work. What energizes you? What
aspects of your work do you find rewarding? What comes to you easily? What are you good at?
Analyze those daily elements and why you feel that way about them.
Also examine times at work when you feel frustrated. What are you doing? Who are you working
with? Are things too challenging or not challenging enough? Being aware of these negatives can
be even more valuable than knowing what you like about your work.
2. Does your job support your outside priorities? Or do you feel overwhelmed at work? It's
essential to have a flexible work-life balance if you're to have a sustainable career. Seek a work
situation that also supports your life outside work. Happy, well-rounded workers are more
productive and successful. Need flex-time? Ask.
3. Learning is Power. Another key to a sustainable career, and staying happy and self-realized
time, is constant learning. Seek job and career avenues where you can move into a sphere where
there is growth and you can acquire new skills. For some, especially with Mutable signs on the
Sixth, this means pursuing various goals and interests through several part-time jobs or working
freelance.
4. Work around people who inspire you. Having close friends at work who are also passionate
about what they do and where they're going, and who feel supportive and connected to their
employers, not only means you're less likely to be frustrated or quit your job but also to receive
career boosts from others at work who are ambitious, energetic, smart and networked.
5. Develop unique and valuable skills. People who love their work often create unique, sought-
after skills and use them to leverage their career goals.
It's not enough to "follow your bliss": you must "develop your bliss."
We’re now on the road to fully comprehending in some depth what is meant by 'work,'
'occupation' and 'health' in the often shortchanged Sixth house.
 Work, Health and the Midheaven Triad

As the gateway to the Seventh house where adult collective living and public self-expression
truly begin, one of the great treasures conveyed by the Sixth house is identifying and refining
your life’s work. Additional supplemental information and details will be found and studied
elsewhere in the horoscope, until ultimately every element of the chart can (and should) be
incorporated to fulfill its role in our life’s work. So 'vocation' – authentic calling – is found here
(contrasted with public status, standing and professional image shown at the Tenth).
One's life’s work is motivated and supported by the overall psychological orientation. That, in
turn, naturally leads to functions which can be offered in service to the collective. Those
functions, then, educated, trained and raised to professional levels, support the Tenth of career
and status.
The Sixth house reveals how the inner you (all the energy archetypes symbolized by the Planets
in the chart) integrates and functions with the outer world (areas symbolized by the houses)
according to your conditioning and scripting (the signs occupied by planets and found on house
cusps). "Planets, Signs, Houses – The Difference" in this series explains these in detail.
The Sixth house is key to your integrative (or disintegrative) psychology: your psychological
'tone,' if you will. People are born with a kind of psychological 'basal metabolism' – Introvert /
Extravert (Carl Jung's spelling), Pessimist / Optimist, for example – that predominates all their
lives unless physical or psychological illness or awareness and transcendence alter it.
Pessimists make the worst out of minor obstacles and challenges and darken their own and
everybody else’s doors with worry and incessant criticism. Optimists maintain their upbeat
psychology even through serious illness or disasters.
To a large extent, the basic psychological metabolism or psychological tone is shown through
the Sixth house, planets in it, its ruler(s), and their aspects. This may be true because this house
shows how you 'adjust' to the inconjunct 150° angle of the Sixth house to the Ascendant: or how
you 'maladjust.'
No planets in the Sixth? Then psychological self-integration may not be a big deal to you, or you
may not be personally or directly interested in serious study and pursuit of it. Without any
planetary energy placed in this house, the external conditioning shown by the sign on the Sixth
cusp and the house matters where the ruler of the Sixth is found play predominant roles in how
you attempt to 'make sense' of everything about yourself and the world around you. You will
learn to be aware of your psychological self-integration because of others' reactions to you
rather than innate curiosity about your own psychology. Other people may point out shortcomings
or problems that need attention, instead of your being aware of them initially on your own. For
some, this means that the gateway into themselves is through the effects they're able to produce in
others – one of the skills of a natural actor and performer.
Like all houses, empty or not, the sign on the cusp reveals the external scripting or conditioning
and external role models for psychological self-integration. The sign on this cusp is often what
you are conditioned to 'go after' in life by parents and others.
The sign here depicts your external scripting for psychological self-integration, work and health.
The ruler of the sign, and its house and sign location(s), also offers further details and important
archetypes for psychological self-integration, as we’re about to see.
Planets in the Sixth? They indicate what type(s) of psychological energies are primarily and
directly involved in your psychological self-integration, acting through the signs they occupy and
the sign on the Sixth. The house rulerships of planets in the Sixth will bring those house matters
to importance in your psychological self-integration. Those with planets in the Sixth usually have
a direct self-awareness of how they want to live their lives, based on their maturity of
understanding about the planetary archetype(s) found here.
It is ultimately impossible to achieve full healthy psychological self-integration or individuation
without also achieving a self-integrated vocational identity or identities. But that is to be
distinguished from mere outer trappings of 'success.' The world is full of wealthy people with
distorted and unhealthy personal lives; even fuller of impoverished people with tragically
truncated existences and disintegrated selves. Both extremes can suffer all the ills, mental and
physical, to which existential dis-ease predisposes.
Conversely, and happily, within both those extremes also dwell many well-adjusted
psychologically integrated and individuated people who are extremely wealthy, along with
others who can’t rub two nickels together but still smile and laugh and love spontaneously
throughout life.
Most of us are somewhere in the middle. As humanity denies (a common but often destructive
protective mechanism) the growing effects and challenges of overpopulation on jobs, income,
economies, food supplies, pollution and climate change – much less rising costs of education
and health care – the future for vocational opportunities and job security looks increasingly
precarious. Or . . .
Maybe jobs and vocations are merely evolving as they always have, with buggy whip
manufacturers yielding to Ford’s assembly lines. Thousands of musicians who managed
lucrative careers and supported themselves and their families playing in theatre orchestras large
and small around the world committed suicide when sound abruptly ended silent films in 1929.
Though we all exist within greater collective contexts, individual lives nevertheless can still
find and achieve happiness, productivity, success, health and wealth – as long as we’re
conscious of what we’re doing and not merely reacting to passing fads, propaganda, worries or
false hopes – or following the herd.
Even in times of great calamity there are those who escape or avoid disaster; even prosper from
it. Why? Luck? Chance? Fate? Though it sounds like a cheap greeting card, there’s truth in the
smarmy adage, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade."
Whether people sour on life or turn its sometimes bitter fruits into lemonade is determined by
how conscious they are of their Sixth house archetypes – with or without astrology – and how
self-integrated.
Some astrologers like to play fortune-teller and identify a client’s job or profession (which
connects inextricably with their mental and physical health) from horoscopes. Others prefer to
analyze what the chart shows as characteristics, psychodynamics and skills required for success
and happiness through work and career, then illustrate how those can be combined to yield a
variety of vocational and career avenues that are naturally appealing and likely for success by
that individual – and when.
During such analyses it’s typical for clients to exclaim, "That’s exactly what I do!" That’s a good
sign. It means they’re already fulfilling the natural bents and talents shown in their horoscopes –
following their bliss to their true vocation to greater or lesser extent.
To the degree that they’re not – when they say, "I thought about doing that once, but I became this
other thing instead, because I didn’t think I could make much money at what I really wanted to
do," or "because my family would have disowned me," an astrologer has located a primary
source of lifelong frustration and potential ill health. Such telling remarks reveal a person out of
touch with natural rhythms and cycles into which they were born; prone to deny self-realization
through excuses and false sacrifices, however rational and practical they sound.
The Midheaven Triad is a good place to begin analyzing vocation, career, finances and – not
incidentally – psychological and physical self-integration and health, since the Sixth house is
part of this triad. As always with astrology, one may gradually expand the focus to include
virtually every significant planet, sign, house and aspect as they relate to the client’s work,
finances and health (which, sadly, often seem separate issues to clients).

In the Midheaven Triad, the Sixth house represents not just the necessary psychological traits
and qualities to be optimally fulfilled through one’s day-to-day work functions and routines, but
also those skills to be educated, trained and refined (through Ninth house higher education) to
achieve any real social standing and respect in the larger community at the Tenth. The Tenth
indicates 'reputation' in that sense. Particularly professional reputation.
The Tenth shows both the authority an individual may attain and also one's relationship to other
authorities over the individual – such as employers or governments.
The four primary triads in astrology – the Ascendant Triad, Nadir Triad, Descendant Triad and
Midheaven Triad – are each comprised of an Angular, Succedent and Cadent house. The Cadent
houses symbolize the supportive Past that leads up to the Angular houses (the immediate
Present), and the Succedent houses show the potential Future projected from the Angles.
The concept is easier to grasp if you consider the Ascendant Triad – the First, Fifth and Ninth
houses. The Ascendant is your overall life in the 'present'; the Ninth your past experience, higher
education and training that leads up to the present (including previous lives, for those interested
in exploring reincarnation through astrology); and the Fifth your natural and spontaneous
projection of yourself into the future. The Ascendant Triad is largely personal since it primarily
operates below the Ascendant-Descendant horizon, except for the remote and collective Ninth
house, which may be taken to represent ones past education in this life or one’s preparation in a
previous life or lives.
Compare the Succedent Fifth and Eleventh houses in a birth chart. The Eleventh house is part of
the Descendant Triad (the Seventh, Third and Eleventh houses), a largely collective triad
primarily focused above the horizon. The Eleventh commonly represents 'hopes, dreams and
ambitions,' or the projection of self collectively into the future in contrast with the Fifth which
indicates the wholly personal projection of individuality into the future. In the Descendant
Triad, the Third house indicates the supportive past that leads up to one’s present closest ties at
the Seventh, including spouses, colleagues, closest friendships and business partners. (Note
astrology's suggestion that one's Third house relationship with siblings, or lack of them if an only
child, becomes an archetypal past or preparation for how one relates to another in marriage or
partnerships in the Seventh.)
Return to the Midheaven Triad, then, to see that the combination of your past psychological self-
integration – the Cadent Sixth house that supports and leads up to your Tenth of collective
professional reputation, authority and identity in a given field – is ultimately projected into your
Succedent Second house 'future' resulting from career attainments; namely 'money' – another
word for freedom of self and resources (as well as 'talents,' an archaic word for money).
The Sixth of psychological self-integration, then, is the Cadent supportive past and foundation
for career, professional identity and standing, public status and financial freedom.
The Sixth is also the foundation for health.
Without which, the wise remind us, we have nothing.
In a real sense, the Sixth house is everything.
 Fame and Fortune
Astrology has long shown what has increasingly become well-established medically: the
intimate links between work fulfillment and mental and physical health. The converse is also
evident: people unhappy in their work are constantly stressed, which can result in accidental
injury, dis-ease and illnesses over time.
It becomes apparent with all stress aspects in astrology that it’s not the stress itself but reaction
to it that determines whether it is constructive or destructive. T-Squares, for instance, are classic
indicators of powerful ambition as well as stress. Stress aspects are essential for action and
achievement.
Any action or activity requires 'stress' of some kind to break inertia. Astrology's 'easy' or 'soft' or
'harmonious' aspects (sextiles and trines, say) imply states of being, stasis or inertia. True, they
indicate 'opportunities' and 'favorable' or 'harmonious' and 'cooperative' conditions for forging
ahead by initiating actions directed toward goal achievement – simply because conditions both
interior and exterior and people in the environment are likeliest to respond supportively and
harmoniously under 'easy' aspects. But soft aspects don't, in themselves, imply or promote
action.
If the ambition and drive inherent in T-Squares or 'hard' aspects find constructive avenues and
outlets, the 'stress' required is productive and healthy. If the inherent drives and energies of hard
aspects are thwarted, repressed, blocked, resisted or buried they can find no outlet and are
unnaturally forced inward, where they have nowhere to act except upon the internal psyche and
physical organs. Simplistically but realistically, that is a primary reason 'stress' aspects can be
indicative of dis-eases.
Often ignored is that 'easy' aspects can also indicate diseases through bad habits and endless
loops of 'comfortable' but ultimately passive and destructive behavior. Obesity from poor
nutrition and lack of exercise, for instance, unless corrected, predisposes to illnesses like
hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
The Sixth house has always depicted the intimate relationship between one's work and health:
and one's health and work. Metaphysically, they are interchangeable because the Sixth is the
archetype of self-integration. If the internal organs and processes of the psyche and physical
body (the 'servants' of our existence) are not healthily integrated and functioning harmoniously,
work and occupational functions cannot integrate successfully and healthily with the collective.
As a rule, this is not an either-or but both-and situation. Most people exhibit simultaneous areas
of positive and negative internal and external functioning which express through work and health
to some extent as both 'success' and 'dis-ease.' Astrology, showing aspects of stress or ease to
planets in the Sixth or to the Sixth house ruler, is tremendously helpful in identifying both
constructive and destructive stress, thus making them consciously accessible for recognition,
treatment, change and healthy integration.
A thorough examination of the Sixth house is crucial for understanding the psychodynamics it
implies; the work skills that can be most optimally developed; and the types of work and
routines that will open up the most inherently natural and rewarding paths toward career
fulfillment, self-realization and freedom.
"Will I be rich and famous?" is a common question from clients. But rewards, fulfillment and
freedom may or may not involve money and fame, as witnessed again and again. Different
people achieve and handle fame and riches differently.
In the world of show business, say, contrast George Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Meryl
Streep with Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Sheen or Whitney Houston. If you’re aware of their
differences in background, education, training and preparation you will understand their vast
differences in behavior, psychological self-integration, health and career longevity.
It’s sobering to realize how few actually possess or develop the qualities and traits (shown
through astrology) necessary to achieve and maintain great fame and wealth, despite what they
say and think they want. Many – perhaps most – are ill-equipped and unprepared to handle the
related stresses constructively. They eventually capsize and sink – victims of their own
immaturity, erratic behavior, irresponsibility, bad choices in management and companions, sex,
drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. All of that might be avoided by honest self-appraisal through astrology
and psychology. But the impetus for honest self-appraisal, like the impetus for addicts getting
clean, must usually come from bottoming out, in the time-honored phrase of twelve-step
programs.
An expensive two months at Promises in Malibu may dry you out but it won’t achieve lasting
psychological self-integration. Nor will attending AA meetings twice a week for the rest of your
life. As Dr. Eric Berne correctly pointed out, such alcoholics and addicts merely swap one
addiction (alcohol or drugs) for another (lifelong twelve-step meetings often fueled by desperate
caffeine and nicotine consumption on periodic breaks). Such programs are certainly better than
the addictions that led to them. But they’re not genuine psychological self-integration or
individuation, as revealed by the fear and reluctance to truly 'get well' and move beyond those
weekly meetings.
 Gateway to Psychological Self-Integration

The greatest, most essential gift of the Sixth house is its gateway to conscious understanding of
one's psychology of self-integration. It is an invaluable entry into personal psychodynamics for
astrologers who are also psychotherapists or who work with them, but it’s equally essential for
everyday practitioners, amateur and professional.
The sign on the Sixth cusp gives broad clues, in Jungian analytical psychology, to an individual’s
dominant Jungian type of psychological self-integration: Fire (Intuition), Earth (Sensing), Air
(Thinking) or Water (Feeling). It depicts a person’s dominant mode of attempting to understand
and solve or integrate the facets of the self with the world around them, regardless of what
dominant type may be represented by the Sun, Moon, Ascendant or Preponderance of Elements
and Qualities.
An old technique, only somewhat valid in the Jungian sense, is to tally the Elements and
Qualities in a chart to arrive at the Preponderance of type. Here is mine, for instance, which is
strongly Extravert (Jung's spelling) Thinking type.

A technique "only somewhat valid" because through years of experience with clients and
working with psychologists one finds that using astrology alone does not always correspond
exactly to results from, say, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
Results from Myers-Briggs and similar tests have certainly proved useful for analytical
psychologists in their work with clients. Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs
Myers, originally developed the test from their extrapolations from Jung’s works. Other tests and
variants have also been developed and are in use.
In my own work with psychologists and clients (I am not a psychotherapist and refer clients who
want to work on issues brought to light through astrology to professionals for in-depth therapy), I
find astrology is actually more specific and useful than those accepted standardized
psychological tests (though astrology does not replace them).
It is not that the Myers-Briggs tests (or astrology) are 'wrong': they are accurate, as far as they
go. But even psychologists with whom I’ve worked since the mid-70s have consistently
remarked on how specific astrology can be at identifying various dominant, inferior, auxiliary
and tertiary cognitive functions and attitudes in specific situations in clients’ lives: invaluable in
their therapeutic practices.
My own type from the Meyers-Briggs type Indicator is, at its most basic, ENFJ – where E is
extravert, N is iNtuitive, F is feeling and J is judging. I have marginal or no preference of
extraversion over introversion; moderate preference of intuition over sensing; slight preference
of feeling over thinking and moderate preference of judging over perceiving.
In my case, however, and through my nearly 70 years, astrological Preponderance more
accurately reflects my typology than do the Myers-Briggs results. But even then, this simple first
step of mere astrological Preponderance may not be sufficient to accurately identify an
individual’s dominant, auxiliary, tertiary and inferior typology (see "Elements and Qualities of
Signs on the Sixth Cusp" below). Simple Preponderance certainly falls short in identifying
Jungian functioning in my own case and in many of my clients. That requires a deeper study of
the horoscope.
But nothing in Jungian Typology quite correlates to astrology’s Sixth house of psychological
self-integration, which may or may not correspond to one’s dominant or even auxiliary type
shown by astrological Preponderance.
So it may be more accurate to view the Sixth house in astrology as the gateway to individuation
(more below) in Jungian analytical psychology, rather than playing a single role in the hierarchy
of dominant, auxiliary or shadow types, and so on.
Saturn in the Sixth, for instance, may indicate that a person’s primary mode of psychological
self-integration is actually their inferior or shadow function, which if unrecognized and not
consciously dealt with can unravel and destroy a life. Most negatively, that type of
psychological self-integration actually becomes self-disintegration, then. For such people,
psychological reality and health is equated with being sick and maladjusted, with failing and
having problems, which makes individuation and health much more difficult to achieve, because
getting well and getting healthy are perceived as genuine threats to their pathological well-
being. A Jungian would never identify the shadow as a dominant function, by definition, though
astrology can suggest that it indeed predominates in some people's process of self-integration.
The Sixth house accurately reveals an individual’s overall modus operandi of self-integration,
in my experience, regardless of dominant or auxiliary Jungian type.
Jung’s analytical psychology and typing of cognitive functions are controversial to some, but so
are all disciplines of psychology. Freud, Jung, Berne, et al. have devotees and detractors. To
imply one approach is less valid than the others merely because it is controversial is superficial
and specious. Like all scientific disciplines and theories, the arguments and explorations
themselves are valuable and instructive. Though some psychological theories and approaches
ultimately fall by the wayside, any one discipline is unlikely ever to triumph and eliminate all
the others, given the vagaries of approaches to human complexity.
Typically, Jung’s inferior type is opposite the dominant one. Astrologically, my dominant type
is Thinking (Air) and my inferior type is Feeling (Water), definitely supported by my Saturn
placement in Watery (Feeling) Cancer, in T-Square with my Sun-Moon opposition (a Grand
Cross if you add my Ascendant). Still one of the best examinations of Saturn’s potential for
pointing to one’s inferior type or Shadow (not necessarily the same thing) is Liz Greene’s
landmark "Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil."
Intuitive and Thinking types correspond to Fire and Air signs in astrology, as Sensing and
Feeling types correspond to Earth and Water signs.
Jung also categorized non-rational perceiving functions (Sensing-Intuition) and rational judging
functions (Thinking-Feeling).
He further categorized two attitudes: extravert and introvert. Jung’s two attitudes are less
readily apparent in horoscopes than the types. Extraversion or introversion can be assessed
through analyzing a horoscope as a whole: taking into account Saturn’s (repression,
introversion) hard and easy aspects to planets and points; planets in apparent retrograde motion
(which always withhold and internalize direct spontaneous expression, at least initially, to
greater or lesser extent); and planets’ affinity or antipathy for expression in their particular sign
placements. But appearances may still be deceiving.
Apparent extraversion can indeed mask innate introversion, though genuine extraversion is
usually obvious by its easy, unforced, natural quality. Genuine extraverts don’t demand or beg
for attention like attention-seeking brats: they don’t have to. Nor can genuine extraverts
convincingly portray introversion. Try as they may, one senses them desperately biting their
tongues and forcibly repressing energies that threaten to burst free any second.
But such behavioral traits may have little to do with Jung’s meanings of introvert and extravert,
which concern an individual’s cognitive orientation and only incidentally may depict obviously
externalized behaviors. (See below).
Jung’s dominant and inferior types are clearer in horoscopes (and easier for clients to
acknowledge) than the introvert or extravert attitude (though assessing the dominant attitude
through astrology is equally clear if somewhat more likely to be disguised in practice, especially
introversion).
 Jung and Astrology Side-by-Side

Before proceeding, ask yourself: "When I’m down, overwhelmed, stressed out, tired, exhausted,
worried or anxious, what do I do (or want to do) to feel better? How do I recharge my
batteries?" Take a moment to answer for yourself. There are typically two types of responses.
Note yours. We’ll return to it later.
It would seem obvious that to determine a person’s dominant Jungian type an astrologer simply
totals their Preponderance of planets and points by Elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) and
Qualities (Cardinal, Fixed, Mutable). The totals may often, in practice, prove accurate. But just
as often they don’t, in strict terms of Jungian types, for reasons explained now.
In addition to Jung’s four types (Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling), he noted two Attitudes
(Introvert and Extravert). These combinations may be dominant or inferior, Auxiliary or
Shadow.
The inferior type or function is always opposite the dominant one in Jungian analysis (though not
necessarily in astrological weighting).
The auxiliary or secondary function, which is generally but not always present, derives from the
pair other than the pair with the dominant function. If Sensing is dominant, the auxiliary function
will be Thinking or Feeling but not Intuition.
The four criteria are considered 'dichotomies' since each represents a continuum between
opposite poles.
Extravert – Introvert represents the source and direction of one's energy expression. In the
external world primarily (extravert), or internal world (introvert)? One's preference isn't about
being 'social' as about one's tendency to act. Does one generally act then reflect? Or think things
through then act?
Sensing – Intuition is the dichotomy through which information is perceived – Jung's perceiving
functions. Sensing types primarily believe and rely on information from the external world.
Intuitive types primarily believe and rely on information from their imaginative or internal
world. Sensing types prefer concrete facts and distrust hunches unless they emerge from logic,
facts and observation. Intuitive types are more oriented toward abstract thought, theories and
information. They tend to be more imaginative, spontaneous and explorative than sensing types
and live more in possibilities for the future. They see connections and patterns and have sudden
insights.
The third dichotomy, Thinking – Feeling, represents how one processes information; Jung's
judging functions. Are decisions primarily made through logic, or based on emotion (what you
feel you should do)? Feeling types generally try to find the most harmonious solution and reach a
consensus: they're uneasy with conflict. Thinking types seek logical solutions based on rules and
assumptions. They accept conflict as natural and expected. It's an error to assume that Feeling
types are emotional and Thinking types are rational. Both are rational approaches, to Jung, and
either type can be emotional.
Whichever function dominates consciousness (Sensing, say), its opposite function (Intuition) is
repressed and usually defines unconscious functioning. It can define the inferior function and /
or the shadow.
The fourth dichotomy, Judging – Perceiving, indicates how people use information they've
processed. Judging types organize situations and events and tend to follow plans. Perceiving
types are more apt to improvise and try options. Judging types tend to explain how they reach
decisions and prefer to resolve matters, checking off to-do lists. Perceiving types prefer sharing
observations and insights rather than necessarily finalizing matters. They're more spontaneous
and open-ended as a rule, enjoy mixing work and pleasure, and often make last-minute
decisions.
Most people have traits of both ends of the dichotomies but prefer one over the other. No
preference or single personality type is superior. Identifying types and recognizing your
preferences is a primary tool for psychological self-integration, individuation and self-
development.
The Element and Quality of the Sun in male charts and the Moon in female charts are usually, but
not always, more obviously apparent in Jungian typology; perhaps because males tend to
identify with their animus and females with their anima, though that too is far from consistent.
Males may reject their father-figure for various reasons and exhibit problems relating to their
animus. Likewise, females may reject their mother-figure and present problems relating to their
anima. In such cases, the animus or anima may be repressed, feared, confined, controlled, denied
or buried. Such attempts are inevitably futile. If the animus or anima is denied or repressed
(from perceived risks of identifying with it), its only available outlets are unconscious and likely
to express potentials for negative or destructive behavior.
Jung believed that one's psychological type derives from the psyche's competing energies
expressing through equivalence (polarized forces trying to attain balance) and entropy (energy
focused on one aspect creating equal reactive energy in its opposite). So predominant
psychological functions meet their opposites and strive for recognition and balance like siblings
competing for a parent's attention and love.
Thus the continual inner dynamics of tensions particularly reflected in astrology's hard aspects
(square, semisquare, opposition, inconjunct). Personal development, for Jung, is achieved
through acknowledging and managing those inner dynamics. An individual's horoscope not only
depicts those inner dichotomies but also the outer areas of life and relationships through which
they are likeliest to express – and when.
Since the shadow contains the unconscious underdeveloped or inferior parts of our psyches, it
represents those parts of ourselves we aren't aware of or which we deny and repress but are
critical of or fear when recognized in others (projection).
Jung emphasized, "Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than
he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in
the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one
always has a chance to correct it."
The inferior function commonly manifests in situations of stress or when we overuse the
dominant function. But it can also distort our perceptions of others and leads to negative
projections even without stress. A key component in analysis and therapy is identifying
projections and exploring the shadow.
Consider these two diagrams: Jung’s analytical psychology and ancient astrology side by side.
They graphically depict the same things: cognitive functioning, inner and outer reality, human
existence and the primordial archetype of Projection. 'Primordial' in the sense that the archetype
of projection underlies all phenomena from the Big Bang to a baby’s birth.

Astrologers recognize the correspondence of the 'Inner World' in the Jungian diagram with the
'Below-the-Horizon' archetype in horoscopes, and the 'Outer World' with the 'Above-the-
Horizon' archetype in astrology, though these have significant differences in each system.
The persona is the face of the ego we present to the outer world. Jung used 'persona' to describe
the mask we adopt to interact with the world according to our inner motives, social conventions
and expectations. It corresponds in astrology to the Ascendant, and that sign's ruler, decanate and
duad.
In Jungian psychology, the persona is essential for integrating with society and the collective. It
helps us adapt our personalities for different environments. A healthy persona is adapted from
our real personality. A weak or non-existent persona makes for social misfits and rebels who
refuse to adjust to conventions and expectations. An overemphasized persona makes for
hypocrisy, insincerity, falseness, immature or poor personality development and inner psychic
conflict.
Astrology reveals a great deal about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the persona through
examining aspects to the Ascendant and its planetary ruler.
But astrology goes much further. It posits that we all have sub-personas which we adopt in
various life situations shown by the signs on the houses. Those sub-personas may also be
analyzed for effectiveness or ineffectiveness in specific situations by examining aspects to a
house cusp and its planetary ruler. ("He's wonderful at home but a jerk as a boss.")
Thus the confusing and contradictory phenomena of people who appear highly organized, expert
and rational yet who suddenly degenerate into irrational, frightened, tyrannical monsters in
certain situations or under certain conditions.
Alcohol or drugs can weaken or dissolve the persona or dominant function and temporarily
allow the shadow free reign, since chemical effects lower or remove inhibitions and self-control
(Saturn). "A drink or two makes me feel more at ease and comfortable in social settings," goes a
common refrain. Thus alcohol or drugs are often present in crimes of debauchery or violence,
where the unacknowledged and undeveloped shadow emerges and takes over – so called 'crimes
of passion'.
The Sixth house cusp, as we're seeing, is effectively our persona for self-integration,
psychologically and physiologically, no matter the persona we try to show the world at our
Ascendant.
In "Psychological Types" (1921), Jung outlined his typology according to four mental functions
that synchronously happen to fit astrology’s four ancient Elements – Sensing (Earth), Intuition
(Fire), Thinking (Air) and Feeling (Water) – and two attitudes – Extravert and Introvert – that
aren’t so readily categorized astrologically.
Jung’s attitudes of introvert and extravert depict the basic direction and flow of an individual’s
conscious interests and energies: inward to subjective psychological experience, or outward to
objects, other people and collective experiences.
Many incorrectly interchange 'shyness' and 'introversion.' Though there is a relationship between
them in Jungian psychology, Jung considered introversion an innate characteristic of turning
inward toward the inner world of thoughts, ideas, imaginings, feelings, intuitions and subjective
experience. Introverts derive most of their satisfaction and meaning from that inner world
instead of the outer world of objects, things, accomplishments, material status and people. In
contrast, extraverts dwell almost exclusively in exteriors and gain meaning from constant
interactions with outer realities.
Introverts often have problematic relationships with the outer world, as extraverts do with the
inner world.
The key premise of Jungian psychology is that people’s typology is the lens through which they
interpret and relate to reality: identical to astrology's premise.
In both astrology and Jungian psychology, typology reveals habitual patterns of attracting and
avoiding behaviors. Both emphasize the importance of identifying and understanding one’s own
typology as well as recognizing and accepting the typology of important others: parents, siblings,
lovers, spouses, friends and co-workers, et al.
The attitudes of introversion and extraversion are radically different. Many cultures tend to
stigmatize introversion, viewing it as abnormal or pathological. In its extremes, introversion may
become dissociated, phobic, schizoid or psychotic – completely separated from outer reality.
Extraversion taken to extremes can act out compulsions, addictions, mania, fanaticism, constant
talkativeness and busyness – all of which help extraverts avoid the devouring Minotaur waiting
in their inner labyrinth of self-reflection.
Though they’re inherent temperaments, extraversion and introversion are also influenced by
environment – exactly as astrology’s innate energy archetypes (planets) are influenced by their
genetic environment (the signs they are in) and external conditioning and circumstances (signs on
house cusps).
Signs in astrology are bridging archetypes that can represent both genetic, inborn traits and
scripting (planets in signs) and external conditioning (signs on house cusps).
The goals of both psychology and astrology are the same: conscious awareness, understanding
and honoring one’s and others’ typologies. One difference – an enormous difference – between
Jungian psychology and astrology is that astrology orients the living archetypes within
foreseeable, interactive, dynamic cycles of Time and Space: 'predictions' in the wholly
misunderstood and superficial pop parlance.
No one thinks twice about predicting they will wake up tomorrow morning, or predicting that the
light at the intersection will turn green and they can step on the accelerator. They make another
confident prediction that if they look both ways before proceeding, a drunk driver won’t appear
out of nowhere and slam into them.
We make hundreds of predictions about events large and small every day. Many involve
repetitive cycles that interact in varying frequencies like waves of light and sound (which in fact
they are).
Yet we are nonplussed when astrology predicts – weeks, months or years in advance – illness,
divorce, loss or attainment of a job. Not because it can’t, but because we’re told it can’t.
Psychology also makes identical predictions. "If you persist in behaving this way because you
refuse to understand why, and don’t change your behavior in light of your new understanding,
you’re going to alienate your spouse, children, friends and boss and end up homeless and passed
out in a gutter."
In highly extraverted societies like the United States, or in strongly extraverted families,
introversion is often discouraged beginning in childhood, with extraversion being encouraged as
the desired and acceptable social norm. Result? Many natural introverts strive to become
extraverts, developing a pseudo-extraverted persona, then feel inexplicably and chronically
anxious, tired or depressed. The same conditioning also occurs when an extravert is inhibited by
a socially or religiously imposed façade of introversion.
Extreme extraversion or introversion sometimes stems, paradoxically, from too much of its
opposite; the psyche's trying to balance excessive one-sidedness.
Return to that question asked earlier, about how you prefer to recharge your batteries when
you're stressed or exhausted.
If all you want to do to nurture yourself and recharge your battery is stay home, read a book, take
a bath, meditate, listen to music, sleep, and pursue solo activities, you probably tend toward the
introverted pole.
If you said, "I want to get out and be with people, go to a party, do something exciting," you are
probably more extraverted.
For introverts, that sort of extraverted activity, especially when feeling depleted, is repellant.
For extraverts, the thought of introspection, silence and solitude is equally noxious.
Introverts, to rejuvenate themselves and replenish their energy, must introvert. Extraverts must
extravert. It's natural.
What happens when someone either doesn't know what their typology is, or rejects it? What if
you couldn't answer the question about recharging your battery because you don't yet know or
haven't found what works for you? Or maybe you do know, but won't let yourself do it?
When introverts try to live like extraverts, they beg trouble because they've lost contact with
their true introvert selves, their re-energizing foundation. The same is true for extraverts who try
to be more 'spiritual' or contemplative by cutting themselves off from external revitalization.
Each has lost their tether to their real and personal source of renewal.
Yes, Jung's process of individuation – becoming more balanced and complete – requires
introverts to recognize, develop and integrate their inferior function, their extraversion; and
extraverts to recognize and embrace their potentials for introversion. Individuation can be
demanding and difficult, since owning and embracing one's inferior function requires real effort,
often fraught with fear.
But individuation doesn't mean rejecting one's innate type and replacing it with its opposite.
Introverts remain introverts even while developing extravert skills, and vice versa. The goals of
individuation are balance; accepting and caring for all facets of yourself; and learning that
repressing your true type (or denying others their right to be true to theirs) is unhealthy and
destructive.
Fear as an archetype and energy may be based on a realistic assessment of dangers, as when one
spots a snarling dog or armed assailant. But fear of others' typology can also be an irrational
denial of one's own inferior function or shadow projected outward onto a target. A common
example is religious fundamentalism, in which Sensing Extraverts (for whom reality is accepted
dogma and obedience to external rules) project their Intuitive or Thinking Introvert inferior
functions or shadows onto those who question rules or won't conform to them.
Thus the universal phenomenon of religious fundamentalists fighting to control education and
critical thought. True learning represents their shadow Thinking function, which is a real threat
to uncritical obedience to dogma.
Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church, infamously said,
"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but –
more frequently than not – struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that
emanates from God." And, "Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample
underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and .
. . know nothing but the word of God." Luther's words are parroted by religious tyrants battling
the Thinking function around the world even today, in a classic example of projection and Jung's
types acting collectively as well as individually.
There is authentic and rational fear, and artificial irrational fear.
Artificial irrational fear is actually a belief in one's own weakness, not strength. Bullying and
violence against 'the enemy' are common defenses. Yet an underlying belief in weakness always,
ultimately, loses. Artificial fear inevitably projects and transfers strength and power to 'the
enemy,' guaranteeing the irrational bully's eventual loss.
Nazis ultimately lost: Jews ultimately won. But anti-Semitism's battle, ever diminishing, still
simmers among some 'faithful' whose artificial irrational fear (based on self-perceived
weakness) projects and transfers strength and power onto 'the enemy'.
Artificial fear blocks individuation (accepting one's own shadow and inferior components) and
fights them externally in others.
Hard aspects in astrology (squares, semisquares, inconjuncts and oppositions) graphically
depict the likely internal battles which – absent conscious awareness – are often projected onto
others and assaulted.
By acknowledging the realities of the shadow, inferior functions and judging-perceiving attitude
within the self, and consciously embracing their significance and power while remaining true to
one's dominant function and attitude, a truce is achieved. The forces are seen as opposing but
complimentary. Individuation and self-integration may evolve.
That is the massive psychological self-realizing secret of the Sixth house in astrology.
 Morality and Individuation

All of that introduces the concept of morality, which contains personality and character but
essentially originates from one's natural inner depths. For Jung, an unconscious reliance on
external dogma is the opposite of true morality because it implies that people's natural inborn
forces are dangerous and untrustworthy. This is the position assumed by all revealed religions:
humans are born 'sinners' out of harmony with the world and require order and control imposed
by outside authorities who 'know better.'
The persona, for Jung, is certainly required for interacting with the demands of external
societies. But its exaggeration or overemphasis prevents establishing true harmony in oneself
and with the collective. "Every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is
in society than when acting alone, for he is carried by society and to that extent is relieved of his
individual responsibility," as Jung understood.
Thus the impossibility of authentic adult interactions with religious fanatics. Richard Dawkins
says, "Religion is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no
discussion."
Anything can become a 'religion'. Corporate or military dogmas, for instance, are other
examples of collectives that demand uncritical obedience to external rules and authorities.
Since the Sixth house is one's archetype for self-integration, it offers tremendous clues about an
individual's affinity for or rejection of externally imposed dogmas.
In Jungian psychology, individuation seeks to balance sacrifice of self to conformity and
honoring one's inferior function or shadow, while productively integrating with the collective.
Relying on external dogmas for personal identity denies any chance of examining or integrating
all aspects of one's psyche: exactly what must occur for individuation and wholeness. The more
we identify with our persona, the more we're likely to have difficulties with our
unacknowledged shadow.
So those collective forces most threatened by awareness and individuation ridicule and condemn
psychology along with astrology and education in general. Personal wholeness requires no
external blessings, permissions or authorities. Nor are human beings 'evil' or out of harmony
from birth.
'Morality' as defined by the ego and external dogma means repressing or controlling the inferior
function and the shadow. The apparent battle between the individual and the collective is
another dynamic or inner tension to be resolved in the psyche. In astrology, that conflict is often
indicated by hard aspects involving the collective archetypes of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto.
We can recognize the phenomenon of projection in individuals and collectives as powerful and
dangerous expressions of unconscious psychological functions throughout the world. Projecting
the functions that conflict with our egos results in alienation and distancing from the other.
Ultimately, they may be seen as an 'evil' to be fought and exterminated.
"What we combat in the other person is usually our own inferior side," Jung observed.
But projections can also operate positively in love and romance, for instance, or working for
bosses who bring out the best in their employees and corporations. To explore the shadow is not
just to acknowledge its negative aspects but to release its potentials.
Jung explains, "If it has been believed hitherto that the human shadow was the source of all evil,
it can now be ascertained on closer investigation that the unconscious man, that is, his shadow,
does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good
qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses,
etc."
We project our own dominant functions onto others with whom we agree. We're naturally
attracted to them because we see in them what we consider our own best and most attractive
selves. To endure, our projections in love and friendships must stand the tests of time (Saturn),
and the adjustments and acceptance required by reality (Saturn again).
A not uncommon inevitability in romantic projections is for the object of our affections
(projections) to temporarily eclipse us, then ultimately devastate us when they fail to live up to
our impossible (unrealistic) romantic projections. If no middle ground is possible, if our own
wholeness is a façade, if we are unindividuated, then 'love' turns to rejection or worse and we
blame yet another failed relationship on the other instead of ourselves for being deluded or
unrealistic.
Another of Jung's myriad insights: "The unconscious has an inimical or ruthless bearing towards
consciousness only when the latter adopts a false or pretentious attitude."
We recognize projection of inferior functions and 'morality' throughout the collective world in
various unending wars and mutual tribal vengeance often justified and fueled by religions. The
Middle East provides one sorry and deadly example. Pollution and its effects on climate are
another projection of collective greed and selfishness: immorality of a different order.
"The upheaval of the world and the upheaval of our consciousness are one and the same,"
according to Jung.
That's also astrology's paradigm since its origins millennia ago: "As above, so below."
 Divergence and Details

Before exploring how all this works in practice with a client, it's necessary to look at how
astrology departs still further from analytical psychology.
Consider Thinking and Sensing types. Most basically, astrology presents these as Air and Earth
archetypes. Within each element are three qualities: Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. Unlike
analytical psychology, astrology immediately defines three sign archetypes for the Thinking
type: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; and three for the Sensing type: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn.
All six operate completely differently, though related.
But that's the barest of bare-bones typology in astrology, toward its comprehensive
understanding of Thinking and Sensing types and functioning.
Mercury, for instance, is another astrological archetype for Thinking. It rules Gemini and Virgo.
The dualistic energy symbolized by Mercury expresses through both intellectual (Air) and
physical (Earth) processes of Thinking. Thus it recognizes and incorporates Sensing (Earth) and
Thinking (Air) in a different framework than Jungian typology. It immediately links the mind and
body, for one thing. It rules both the intangible Air sign qualities of Thinking and the neurons,
synapses and physiological Earth sign connections of Sensing.
The Moon and its sign by element and quality are also traditional archetypes of the 'mind' (and
therefore thinking) in astrology, but also of feelings and emotions – as well as the glandular
system, the meninges of the brain, and so on. Thus astrology links Jung's Feeling type to
Thinking, in ways analytical psychology does not.
Further, Gemini and Virgo represent two completely different kinds of Thinking. Gemini is
purely connective thinking. It seeks only to link, join, relate and connect this and that, these and
those – not necessarily to assign meaning or value to them. Virgo is purely analytical thinking. It
seeks to define, distinguish, discriminate, separate, analyze and categorize. By nature, one
Thinking process is immediate, connective and superficial; the other deliberate, separative,
evaluative and critical.
Further, and still considering only the Thinking function, astrology offers the archetypes of the
Third and Ninth houses, which represent even more individualized and specialized Thinking
functions, because the houses are determined solely by time of birth, unlike sign and planet
positions.
The Third house represents routine day-to-day Thinking: habitual thinking; routine mental
processes; topics and subjects that attract or repel Thinking; as well as communication in
general, fine motor coordination and so on. The sign on the Third cusp symbolizes a person's
external conditioning or scripting involving all those aspects of Thinking – which may or may
not harmonize with or support their innate Thinking energies shown by the signs occupied by the
Moon and Mercury.
The Ninth House and Jupiter are also archetypes of Thinking, in astrology: 'higher' thinking
distinguished from 'routine' thinking. Thus Jupiter and the Ninth house are specifically indicative
of Thinking involved in higher education, philosophy, religion, sciences and the larger collective
spheres of intellect.
So astrology, in discussing Jung's Thinking function, requires examination of the following nine
archetypes: Moon, Mercury, Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Aquarius, Jupiter, Third house and Ninth
house. One of those (Jupiter) connects Thinking with Intuition and Feeling. Two (Moon, Jupiter)
connect Thinking with Feeling. One (Mercury) connects Thinking with Sensing.
But astrology's still not finished describing Jung's Thinking function. Those nine archetypes have
degree 'aspects' (squares, trines, etc.) involving other planetary and house archetypes that must
be considered to comprehensively analyze the Thinking function as shown in the horoscope.
Mars' archetype, for instance has nothing (seemingly) to do with Thinking. Mars is often
considered entirely physical (Sensing) and external in its basic energy symbolism. It represents
gross motor coordination. It rules action, initiative, testosterone, adrenaline, drive,
assertiveness, athletic prowess, anger, violence, and so on. But Mars is also associated with
Scorpio, a feeling Water sign.
If Mars happens to occupy Gemini, Virgo, the Third or Ninth house, or closely aspects the
Moon, Mercury, Jupiter or the Third / Ninth ruler, Mars' archetype becomes intrinsically
wedded to Thinking. In such instances, Thinking and Sensing are coupled. If one or the other (or
both) functions are inferior or shadow functions, the self is at war with the self in rather specific
behaviors and situations that only astrology can clearly illuminate through planet, sign and house
placements.
All this begins to suggest the difficulty and complexity of examining Jungian types simplistically
through astrology. It is not to say that one approach is better, but that both are supportive in
enormously significant ways.
Add astrology's unique gift of foreseeing timing and it becomes an unparalleled system for
psychological understanding and individuation – as Jung recognized.
"Since you want to know my opinion about astrology," Jung wrote, "I can tell you that I've been
interested in this particular activity of the human mind since more than 30 years. In cases of
difficult psychological diagnosis I usually get a horoscope in order to have a further point of
view from an entirely different angle. I must say that I very often found that the astrological data
elucidated certain points which I otherwise would have been unable to understand."
Jung’s appreciation of types, functions and attitudes expressing collectively in groups,
populations and nations corresponds to Mundane astrology – the branch that studies politics and
worldwide collective consciousness, e.g. the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Renaissance,
Hippies, terrorism, elections, wars, religious strife, et al.
Let's review the essentials before seeing them at work in actual cases.
In addition to the four dichotomies of type, Jung's two attitudes have already been noted as less
readily defined through astrology alone. Yet there are still indicators.
Astrology helps identify extraversion by examining and weighing various influences of
angularity (planets near or in the four angles); Cardinality; Fire and Air preponderance; and the
strengths of the Sun, Moon, (sometimes Venus), Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Uranus. Introversion
is commonly assessed by weighing influences of cadent placements and the strengths of Saturn,
Neptune and Pluto (and sometimes Venus).
Fixed and Mutable signs are trickier in determining Jung’s attitudes of introversion or
extraversion. They may be either or both in the case of mutable placements. The duality and
variability of Mutable signs (there’s a reason they’re known as 'trickster' signs) can express as
both introversion and extraversion, situationally.
Still, determination of attitude – introversion or extraversion – can be reached through
questioning and examining the horoscope’s various factors with the client.
A person’s dominant Meyers-Briggs type, as pointed out, may or may not harmonize with their
type of psychological self-integration indicated by their Sixth house.
When studying horoscopes, always be cognizant of the differences between signs on a house
cusp and planets in a sign. See "Planets, Signs, Houses – The Difference" in this series to fully
examine how those differences operate in charts.
Simplistically, since houses are archetypal divisions of the 360º circle of the skies incorporating
the ecliptic and meridian, they are imaginary projections from the earth. Houses are essentially
earthy and outer, then. They relate to specific externalized areas of life – including the body and
physical organs . . . and to internal areas of the psyche activated when interacting with exterior
situations such as loving, working, learning, socializing, etc.
Planets in astrology represent preexisting archetypes of energies inherent throughout creation,
including all physical energies involved in the creation of the earth, the solar system, galaxies,
electrons, atoms – and human beings.
More specifically focused in human lives, birth planets in signs indicate inherent or genetic
distributions, focuses and predispositions of psychological and physiological energies.
Signs symbolize preexisting archetypes for those energies’ functions: physical actions,
producing sounds, seeing, hearing, using hands, walking, running, eating, drinking, chewing,
swallowing, digesting, excreting, mating, parenting, connecting, rejecting, valuing, et al. Most
basically, signs represent scripting for functions and for planetary energies.
A sign on a cusp indicates external conditioning about those house matters.
A planet in a sign symbolizes inherent or genetic scripting (DNA) of the planet’s energy.
Uranus, for example, represents all electromagnetic energies, randomness, spasm, fission,
explosiveness, sudden emergence into matter and materiality (among other energy archetypes).
Neptune represents all biochemical energies, fusion, fertilization, contamination, infection,
wastingness, decay, et al. Mars represents heat, acidity, inflammation, injury, cutting, surgery
and so on. Saturn represents structuring, alkalinity, organizing, calcification, hardening, sclerosis
(among other energy archetypes).
Again simplistically, Mars is the energy archetype for action. In human beings Mars is the
archetype for gross motor responses; Mercury the archetype for fine motor responses.
The signs planets occupy represent planets’ genetic scripting at birth: how the energies for
action, electromagnetism, biochemistry, structuring, etc., are predisposed to operate. The houses
planets are in represent their externalized locus or loci both in human psyches and organs and in
outer situations of living.
The sign on the Sixth cusp, then, shows an individual’s conditioning toward psychological self-
integration . . . and her or his conditioning toward belief systems about work, occupation,
health, body-image and self-integration.
The planetary ruler of the sign on the Sixth cusp is the archetype for the primary energy in the
individual that dominates Sixth house matters, including psychological self-integration. The sign
the Sixth house ruler occupies depicts the inherent or genetically scripted archetype the planet's
energy acts out.
Signs in astrology primarily correspond to Jungian types.
Planets and houses in astrology primarily correspond (through their weighting) to Jung’s
attitudes of introversion and extraversion.
As is true for many facets of astrology, the 'art of synthesis' – which can only be secured through
experience – is the determinant for clarifying Jungian types in horoscopes.

Among necessary considerations in addition to Preponderance:

Final Dispositor – A planet in its own sign that ultimately disposes of (rules) every other
planet (and point) in the horoscope
Weighting of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Midheaven by Elements and Qualities
Rulers of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Midheaven by Elements and Qualities
Saturn’s aspects to those and to personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter)
Saturn’s Element and Quality by sign alone provide clues to one’s Shadow, inferior
function, or Introversion or Extraversion.
Hard aspects from Saturn may indicate repression, denial, control or burial of the portions
of the psyche signified by the archetypes Saturn contacts with hard aspects.
The Sixth cusp sign by Element and Quality will support or conflict with the above.
One’s type of psychological self-integration (shown at the Sixth and by planets in the
Sixth) may or may not be the same or even harmonious with one’s dominant Jungian type,
pointing to relative ease or difficulty of self-integration.

The Natural Wheel beginning with zero Aries on the Ascendant depicts astrology’s sign-and-
house archetypes for human life in symbolic order from beginning to end. Unless you are born
with Aries rising, your life necessarily digresses from those.
The Natural Wheel suggests that being born is itself a powerfully aggressive, bloody and painful
Intuitive Extravert (Fire sign, First house, Mars ruled) archetypal experience on both the
mother’s and the newborn’s parts.
Verbal communication, writing and using the hands are naturally Thinking (Air) and Sensing
(Earth) archetypal experiences. Self-integration, work, body image and one’s overall beliefs
about one’s health are, by nature, also Thinking (Mercury) and Sensing (Earth) archetypal
processes.
If you remember the distinctions among sign, planet and house, your understanding and analysis
of the Sixth (or any) house and of planets in signs in determining Jungian types, and whether they
are derived from innate energies or external conditioning, will not be confused.
How does all of this work in real life? Let's go ask Alice.
 Ask Alice

Alice (a pseudonym) first contacted me at the suggestion of an old friend of hers in Los Angeles
whom she visited, an actress who was my client. We subsequently had more sessions whenever
Alice traveled west. The first session startled and intrigued her. In later sessions, she half-
heartedly tried to open herself to looking more deeply and introspectively at her life, particularly
her relationships with her husband and children. But that first day she wanted fortune-telling.
"Just tell me what’s going to happen. I don’t need the other mumbo-jumbo," she said soon after
we sat down.
I don’t recall a client in fifty years who so immediately and calmly tried to control and direct a
session. I like control freaks. They’re so vulnerable and defensive, coming from family
backgrounds where power and control and manipulation issues held such tight grips on love and
security. They’re wonderfully easy to disarm.
"Well, that’s fine," I told her. "But if you want a reading with me, and you really want to know
what’s going to happen to you, we need to look at your chart and find out why you chose to
marry a man who deceived you even before you got married – about his health problems . . . and
about children – is he alcoholic, by chance? Because it looks like you come from an alcoholic
background too, and probably had a deceitful father, if he was there at all for you, and it’s
typical to unconsciously marry another alcoholic . . . . Is he impotent?"
She was silent, unblinking and motionless, her mouth half-open, staring hard at me, so I knew I’d
hit home – which was my purpose. Whatever she expected from an astrologer, this wasn't it.
"Older," I continued, "which is typical with this kind of background . . . and with all these
secrets. Which are also typical of alcoholic backgrounds. You do know how vulnerable he is,
don’t you? And how much he needs you? Because he’d fall apart without you. He’d probably be
dead by now, in fact. Is this making any sense to you?"
She hesitated, then nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I smiled gently at her to let my point settle in, then finally said, "Because I’m here to tell you that
if you think all this is fate, that’s happened to you in your marriage, I’m telling you every bit of it
– down to the last detail – was your own choice and your own actions."
I waited while that sank in too. "Just like everything that’s going to happen to you in the future.
It’s all up to you. And how well you understand yourself. And how it’s you that makes things
happen: not fate."
It took maybe two minutes to reestablish control over the session and prove astrology’s validity
to Alice. She was a piece of cake from then on: a sweetheart trying to be a tough cookie.
"So let’s go back to your father. I want to know what happened to you at age three, with him.
Because that’s where it all begins."
Alice’s chart is a revealing illustration of the profound importance of the Sixth house of
psychological self-integration.
The usual interpretive and analytical techniques are fine. But in addition to those, you’ll be
rewarded if you focus specifically on her psychology of self-integration by turning her chart
(mentally or manually) so her Sixth cusp (circled below in red) is on the Ascendant. Look at the
remarkable differences between Alice’s two charts.

You can use this technique (placing the house in question on the Ascendant) to study any house
in more detail. You may also wish to examine how the hallmarks of Alice’s life and
psychological self-integration show up in equally useful but different ways in both charts’
perspectives.
In Alice’s birth chart (it looks like a Solar Chart but her certificate said 6:08 a.m.), everything is
below the horizon except Venus in Aries (accidentally dignified in her Twelfth house). As
wonderful as Venus may be in that house, the Twelfth nevertheless connotes elements of
sacrifice or loss in love and marriage (Venus), along with its nobler spiritual and humanitarian
indications.
Among other things potentially suggested by Alice’s below-the-horizon emphasis is her self-
containment in entirely personal spheres rather than public or collective ones: personal security,
home and family issues.
Another obvious clue: her Sixth house is empty, with Libra on its cusp. It is highly unlikely Alice
has much natural inclination to delve directly into her psychology or self-integration, with no
planets there.
Libra on that cusp suggests that her psychological self-integration is conditioned to behave
harmoniously, beautifully, charmingly, socially and to seek her self-integration through marriage
– through externals and others' reactions to her, then, with no planetary energies in the Sixth
house. She has the Capricorn duad of Libra on that cusp, which adds a pointed awareness of
outer material status to her psychology of self-integration and already begins to connote
attraction to an older (Capricorn-Saturn) partner (quickly confirmed by Saturn in her Second,
sextile Venus of love and marriage).
Saturn is in Gemini (Thinking type), which may suggest Thinking could be her inferior or
shadow function, if the indication is further supported elsewhere.
When we place Alice’s Sixth house on the Ascendant to study in more detail how she achieves
psychological self-integration, everything shifts radically to an entirely public and collective
focus above the horizon, except her Midheaven. Why and how would that be Alice’s modus
operandi of self-integration when, 'by nature' (birth horoscope) she’s so completely focused and
centered in personal areas?
Can it be true, as Alice's Midheaven now in her Fourth house of her psychological self-
integration chart suggests, that she makes her career (MC) and establishes her authority through
home and family issues (Fourth house), to support all that collective and public above-the-
horizon emphasis?
 All About Alice

You can’t go wrong if you start with Saturn. Saturn in Alice’s birth chart is in her Second house,
seven degrees from exactly square (across the line of sign) Neptune in her Fifth. You
immediately want to explore issues of money and financial security in Alice’s childhood and
upbringing as they shape her self-worth (Second house) and her Neptunian projection of herself
into her future (Neptune in her Fifth).
With her Saturn in mutable dualistic Gemini, you know Alice has always had to play both ends
against the middle in important ways, to navigate through a life where nothing is quite what it
seems and her future projection of self (Fifth house) is uncertain and filled with secrets (Saturn
square Neptune).
You know you have to bring up areas of self-deception, self-sacrifice and secrets (always
present, consciously or unconsciously, with Neptune) as they affect her romantic and idealistic
Venus in Aries – and love, marriage and children (Neptune in Libra in her Fifth). With Saturn
square Neptune, there is always the threat that her structure, security, permanence, trust and
certainty (Saturn) may at any moment be lost, stolen, betrayed or revealed as fraudulent
(Neptune).
Yes, that’s a generational aspect with those two slow-moving planets that affects, to greater or
lesser extent depending on how the personal planets aspect it, hundreds of thousands born that
day. But always remember: just because something is valid for many doesn’t make it any less
valid for one.
So far, this is classic cookbook astrology. Nothing wrong with that. But keep those indications in
mind.
Now examine Alice’s psychological self-integration chart (her birth chart rotated to place her
Sixth cusp on the First house). In essence, it reveals still more information about how she
integrates and makes sense of what she was born with.
Start again with Saturn, now appearing in Alice’s Ninth of 'higher education' and religion. You
have to explore those two areas with her through this chart in terms of her psychological self-
integration. It’s impossible to miss Neptune now above the Ascendant in her Twelfth house,
indicating that her spontaneous projection of self into the future (Neptune’s Fifth house position
in her birth chart) becomes focused on helping and healing the sick, wounded and downtrodden
(Twelfth house), which could potentially include herself: or focused on escapism through
alcohol or drugs or affairs. Or all of those.
The facts of Alice’s life?
She was born in San Diego to an unfaithful alcoholic father who abandoned his wife, daughter
and son shortly before Alice was three (2½ º degrees separate her Sun-Pluto square; see "Using
Degrees" in this series).
Alice, her infant brother and mother were forced to move back to her mother’s small home town
in the South, where they lived with her mother’s mother (Alice’s grandmother) and depended on
the grandmother and Alice’s uncle (her mother’s half-brother) for financial help.
Both women were heavy drinkers. "But not really alcoholics," Alice said defensively.
"Everybody drank socially." Okay. But experienced professionals recognize this denial of the
elephant-in-the-living-room as reliable code for dysfunctional alcoholic families.
Alice’s mother was tireless and enterprising. For a time, she owned and operated a beauty shop
(thanks to her half-brother’s buying it for her), then took a series of secretarial jobs over the
years, supplementing that income by renting to boarders and selling her beautiful and prized
custom-made garments (she was a skilled seamstress).
Alice grew up wearing stylish hand-me-downs from the year-older daughter of a well-to-do
couple a few blocks away. Pretty, endowed, smart, well-dressed, genuinely sweet, kind and
loving (a good Taurus), Alice was popular and accepted by her high school’s in-crowd despite
having a divorced mother (a stigma in those days) and no money.
She won a partial scholarship to a small college, which she attended for one year before
finances forced her to return home to work. Eighteen months later, Alice became engaged and
married shortly before turning twenty-one (one degree from an exact conjunction of her solar arc
MC with her Part of Fortune in her Tenth of status, suggesting her time of birth may be off by
four minutes or so; and also a multiple, by 3, of her Saturn-Neptune's square, which is seven
degrees from exact).
Her mother chose Alice’s future husband from a local newspaper article about the man. Ten
years older than Alice, he was a graduate of a good east-coast university, only son of the
prominent banking family in his own home town (even smaller than Alice’s), who was coming to
work that summer as an intern for a bank in Alice’s town, the article said.
Alice’s mother had friends who lived at the apartments where the man was renting. She arranged
for Alice – who even today remains slender, well-endowed and attractive – to join her friends
to swim in the apartments’ pool – in a bathing suit, obviously. The friends introduced Alice to
this wealthy man. He was smitten with one look.
So Alice, though highly intelligent, had only one year of education beyond high school, then
married and moved to her husband’s small town where she immediately assumed the role of a
social leader because of her husband’s family’s status. As it happened, he was a Scorpio, the
sign on Alice’s Seventh house of marriage and a terrific sign for a banker.
Look for a moment at love and marriage in Alice’s birth chart compared to her psychological
self-integration chart.
Did she love her wealthy older husband? Undoubtedly. Venus sextiles Saturn – favoring an older
partner – and falls in her Seventh of marriage in her self-integration chart: the fulfillment of her
psychological self-integration through her Venus archetype. Venus in Aries indicates an early
marriage and a rapid one. "Marries in haste, repents in leisure," goes the old Venus-in-Aires
maxim.
Marriage for Alice in her birth chart is ruled by Scorpio on her Seventh, and by Mars in Cancer:
a marriage for conventional reasons of home, family and security. Did Alice gain from the
marriage? Venus trines her Jupiter in Leo in her self-integration chart’s Eleventh: the
psychological self-integrative fulfillment of her Jupiter archetype. Venus and Jupiter sextile /
trine Saturn are classic indicators of material comfort and even wealth, especially over time.
They were the wealthiest leading couple in Alice's husband's small town when her father-in-law
retired and her husband took over. Alice dedicated her life to improving the town’s school,
library and disadvantaged youth (whom she understood well). She was prominently active in
every social, church and community non-profit organization. (There’s all that above-the-horizon
self-integration into outstanding collective roles!)
Sex? Children? Neptune of secrets in her Fifth house at birth and her Twelfth in her
psychological self-integration chart?
Her older husband neglected to tell her until after their marriage that he was seriously epileptic
and wanted to adopt rather than risk passing on his condition to biological children. He also
withheld his parents’ and his own severe alcoholism (and his awkward fumbling impotence)
until after their marriage (terrified he’d otherwise lose her). He had been on medications since
childhood and fought serious depression all his life (and he was a fighter, as befits a Scorpio).
Nothing was as he’d presented to Alice. They adopted two infants during the first two years of
their marriage. (Neptune in the Fifth is one indication of adopting.)
More Fifth house secrets? Alice was a virgin when she married. But sex with an older alcoholic
and impotent husband wasn’t the earth-shaking passion she’d dreamed of from movies. Two
years into her marriage, she had a discreet affair with a virile young (single) local mechanic
close to her own age but broke it off before it could damage her marriage, family or reputation.
Alice was devoted to her husband, children, church and local charity work, helping improve her
town every way she could. She was an unpretentious though beautiful, charming and gracious
social leader for forty years, until her husband’s death. No one in town ever questioned, crossed
or argued with her or her husband. They wouldn’t dare: he held yea or nay power over all their
loans.
That was Alice’s socially prominent, comfortable, self-contained life after her doubtful
beginnings. Her husband later sold the bank and retired. They moved to a larger city for his
increasingly serious medical conditions. She and their children inherited millions when he died
(Jupiter ruling her Eighth of inheritance, in her Fifth in Leo, trined by Venus, her Sun-Ascendant
ruler).
Saturn in Alice’s Ninth house in her psychological self-integration chart also begs examining the
role religion plays in her life. (We’ve seen how it reflects her prematurely short-circuited higher
education.)
Organized religion is a Ninth house Sagittarian matter – in its conforming, tradition-loving,
impressionable, unquestioning, dress-for-church, dogmatic elements. Religion becomes
spiritual, inward and transcendent in its Twelfth house Piscean expressions. Those two
archetypes are at odds (square) in Alice’s horoscope. One is knowable, dependable and socially
approved (if the rules are followed): the other is not, except inwardly.
The Biblical Matthew, relating the Sermon on the Mount, says it all: "And when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy
Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
In Jungian terms, that’s a concise description of the difference between religion as an extravert
and spirituality as an introvert cognitive function.
So an astrologer would necessarily examine the role that conservative, Saturn-tinged Ninth
house religion plays in Alice’s psychological self-integration throughout her life. Because Saturn
is the archetype for the skeleton and bones in the body and metaphorically for the structure and
architecture of one’s life.
Alice is highly religious. Her 'church family' is the center of her life. She is dogmatic, stubborn,
inflexible and politely defensive about it. Though she considers herself relatively liberal for her
locale, she is anti-choice, anti-abortion, deeply troubled by same-sex marriage and equality, and
privately afraid her Jewish daughter-in-law is going to hell.
Those two Saturn elements alone in Alice’s psychological self-integration chart – her lack of
higher education relative to her friends and position, and her rigid adherence to conservative
religious dogma – are immediate keys to comprehending Alice’s psychology.
Rejected as a toddler by her unfaithful alcoholic father, she replaced him with a reliable and
loving 'Father in Heaven.' But even that father offers conditional love, not unconditional.
Scriptural authority, male authority, must be obeyed if one is to enter the Pearly Gates instead of
the Pits of Hell. Critical thinking and questioning (per Martin Luther, all religious authorities,
and Saturn in Gemini) must be repressed at the risk of being shunned by others (another form of
rejection and abandonment). And the psychology of Libra on the Sixth tries to please and charm.
Everybody.
The chance to encounter and develop inner transcendence or direct experience of 'God' through
Neptune – square Alice's Saturn – is feared, blocked and rejected because it threatens to
undermine her unquestioning obedience to the external trappings and dogma of her church family.
It would threaten her place in the community and even her marriage. She prefers dressing up and
praying publicly (extravert). The last place she seeks 'God' is shutting the door behind her to
pray alone in her closet. (Astrologers recognize that this same position of Neptune in the Twelfth
is also an archetype of depth psychology, which Alice also shuns because it is too threatening.)
Alice married young, to a wealthy older father-figure chosen by her mother (for material
security: love and emotional security were secondary to practical concerns). Like Alice's father,
he too turned out to be alcoholic; self-protectively deceitful (common in alcoholics); concealing
serious chronic illnesses and impotence until after their marriage; needing a care-giver as much
as a wife to show off and be proud of.
None of this is to say they did not love each other. They did, for forty years until he died. But it
illustrates the often unspoken mutual needs that can underlie marriages and love ties, and how
those dynamics are depicted in horoscopes.
Alice needed dependable material security to provide for herself, her mother’s later years, and
her (much wanted, adopted) children. Her assets were her physical attractiveness, native
intelligence, loyalty, domestic skills, unforced charm and desire to please. He needed a trophy
wife to augment his status in town by filling the role of admired wife, mother and pillar of the
community – and also secretly needed a caregiver he could rely on to see him through "in
sickness and in health." His assets were financial, material and intellectual (he had a good
education and took over the bank from his father, successfully expanding it, capitalizing on his
Scorpio talents). He loved Alice and she loved him. Both got what they wanted; both took their
marriage vows seriously; both accepted marriage’s all-too-human compromises till death parted
them. Astrologically, they were tremendously well-matched.
None of that really touches on the economic class dynamics also involved in their marriage.
Class is still, and certainly was in bygone years, an almost taboo topic in America. Alice came
from nothing. Her husband was wealthy. The wealthy girls in his small town could afford to –
and did – go off to schools where they met and married far more physically attractive specimens
than the small town banker's short, slight, epileptic, alcoholic, but loving and yearning son. Class
and educational differences can be another layer of power dynamics in marriages. And elements
of power, possession and control are often undercurrents where Scorpio (Alice's husband's sign
and the sign on Alice's Seventh house) are involved.
Happiness? What defines it? What is it?
One readily sees in Alice’s life her earthy Taurus components of desiring material security and
physical comforts; her fundamentally loving nature; her loyalty, dependability, desire for home
and family; her beauty, charm and desire to please – even to sacrifice for others.
By astrological Preponderance, however, Alice’s dominant function in Jungian typology should
be Intuition and her inferior or unconscious function Sensing. In fact, in practice, it is the
reverse, which shows how an astrologer must explore more deeply than simple Preponderance,
though Preponderance may also be a helpful starting place.
Alice’s dominant function is Sensing Extravert. She herself comments "I can’t sit still. I have to
be doing something." She begins every day by driving to an athletic club to exercise. She can’t
be quiet. Around others she presents a steady stream of talk for talk’s sake that is occasionally
so unrelated to the moment it provokes laughter.
Alone, Alice has television on in the background while she simultaneously reads, knits, cooks
and takes phone calls. She has never had a meditative or contemplative moment in her life, other
than within the safe and socially approved walls of her church several times a week where
instead of going inward and meditating she reads aloud with others from the prayer book, sings
hymns and listens passively to sermons. Neptune in her chart – genuine direct transcendence – is
too threatening to her carefully-achieved and regulated Saturn structures.
But Saturn in Gemini in the Second house of self-worth can be a double-edged sword. (Note too
its indication of financial 'duality' in life – from poverty to wealth.)
Alice has trouble sleeping; an admittedly light sleeper. "I have to be doing something." Her
social calendar is full and continually conflicted as she receives new invitations and takes rain
checks on previously scheduled ones. "I have to be doing something."
Her enterprising, lonely, abandoned, divorced but determined and loving single mother also
always had "to be doing something" to take care of her children. Is it any surprise Alice shares
the alcoholism that’s a constant thread in her father’s, mother’s, grandmother’s and husband’s
family backgrounds? It’s the only 'acceptable' escape from all her self-imposed pressures.
(Early on she tried and wisely abandoned affairs as escape.)
Alice’s auxiliary function would be Feeling, but she denies it, flatly insisting "I’m not
emotional." She’s one of the many people with a minimal or absent auxiliary function. (Her
assertion also perfectly depicts the inner reality of Saturn's square blocking Neptune's energy in
the psyche.)
Alice’s Sensing Extravert function so dominates her psychology that even though she sees herself
as highly spiritual (Intuitive or Feeling Introvert), she is in fact religious (Sensing Extravert).
Alice is wholly oriented toward outer dogma, scripture, rituals, rules, external authorities, her
'church family' and parroting the received 'Word of God' revealed to and through others (all
males), not to her directly, personally or inwardly. She accepts only what’s 'tried and true'
according to approved external sources passed on for generations through tradition. That kind of
religion is Sensing Extravert. The inner aspects of religion, namely inward intuitive and
emotionally directed spirituality and transcendence of the outer and material (and the ego) are
Alice’s inferior functions.
Her inferior function, opposite her dominant one, is Intuition (despite her astrological
Preponderance in Fixed Fire); her inferior attitude is Introvert. In Alice’s case, Thinking
Introvert is her Shadow. Critical thinking is her Devil (as for most fundamentalists).
Where is Alice’s Saturn? In the Thinking function of Mercury-ruled Gemini in her Second house
of self-worth, which we noted immediately. The last place Alice looks, or has ever looked, is to
her own thoughts, her own rational judging faculties (the Thinking-Feeling dichotomy in Jungian
terms), for answers, insights or solutions. "Tell me what to think. Tell me what to do. Tell me
how to act. Tell me what’s going to happen. Skip the mumbo-jumbo."
Alice’s entire life is defined by externals: by what has been handed and told to her; what can be
seen, touched, tasted, owned, displayed, banked and stashed in a safe deposit box for a rainy
day. Her psychological self-integration chart – where everything is above the horizon –
graphically clarifies her psychology.
Is that a bad way to live? Is Alice’s Sensing Extravert type and Thinking Introvert Shadow less
valid than other typologies? Absolutely not. Jung reminds again and again that the types are
different from each other, not better or worse. He also reminds us how profoundly they shape
lives, and how important individuation is for achieving happiness (individuation being the
conscious ability to access all one’s cognitive functions while honoring one’s innate, inherent
dominant one).
Alice mistrusts all inward (introvert) directed manifestations in life – like psychology,
astrology, spirituality and critical thinking. The sole reason she ever returned for sessions was
astrology’s accuracy about outward situations in her life. She and I became friends (a wonderful
ancillary benefit of astrological practice) over the years. I was invited to stay in her home with
her and her husband several times in my travels. But I was, in effect, a West Coast intellectual
flirtation she had with her shadow: another kind of 'affair,' non-romantic and kept secret and
isolated from her 'real' life.
Jung’s perceiving type is anathema to Alice. Her preference is judging.
In astrological sessions, she avoided going into depth about how her belief-systems, established
by her early circumstances and determining her choices, created situations in her life. She
wanted fortune-telling. "Just tell me what’s going to happen. Skip the mumbo-jumbo."
The inner directed (introvert) dimensions of astrology, reality, cycles, projections, even of her
beloved religion, frightened Alice and threatened her fundamental security – so they were
ignored and dismissed. Though not an obvious superficial snob, material status defines
everything to Alice. She always dresses well and constantly cooks, raises money, donates
clothes and otherwise 'helps' the poor and less fortunate. Good works? Certainly. Motivated by
selfless charity? Guilt? Approval from her church family? All three? Who’s to say?
There are those who, fully in touch with all aspects of themselves, consciously choose to devote
their lives to helping others. There are those who, running from all aspects of themselves,
concentrate on others' lives because their own pain or hollowness is too much to face.
What can be said is that there is a price for surrendering aspects of one's inner self and
psychology so completely to outer determinants (Sensing Extravert) and blocking access to the
other functions: surrendering individuation, in other words. It is a form of unconscious self-
denial and self-destruction that may take many years (especially in Fixed signs like Taurus) to
become evident through mental or physical dis-ease.
It is also entirely different from the conscious self-abnegation of a nun, say, or an aesthete,
scientist or physician who chooses to sacrifice self or ego to 'God' or Art or Science or
medically treating the poor in a third world country.
It is the unconsciousness of the rejection of parts of the self in people like Alice that is
dangerous. Materially, and viewed from her dominant Sensing Extravert function and attitude
and judging preference, (all superficially approved by others), everything appears to have
worked out well for Alice – if one doesn’t dig too deeply into her vastly dysfunctional
relationships with her husband (who, with her consent, 'owned' her) and children.
Only now, free of her husband and son (her middle-aged daughter is highly troubled, never
married, and functions psychologically and temperamentally at the level of a fifteen year old) as
Alice approaches seventy in apparent perfect health, has she begun showing troubling early
stages of dementia.
This is not to say – I repeat – that Alice’s belief systems and psychology or astrology's planets
cause dementia (or cancer, to which she may also be prone; she had a hysterectomy a few years
ago "to be on the safe side"). It is to say that her psychology and belief-systems are synchronous
with such ultimate physical conditions of dis-ease, psychological one-sidedness and lack of
harmony. Those probabilities do show up in horoscopes. (They can also be changed if
consciously understood early enough and treated professionally. But in practical experience
over fifty years? Many people sadly do not expend the time or effort to change – then blame the
eventualities on 'fate.')
No one can fear, deny and reject any of the Self’s psychological functions for decades without
negative results. Fear, denial and rejection of them are essentially attempts to destroy something
about the self: forms of psychological self-abuse and suicide.
In Alice’s case, her own critical thinking poses such terror (she believes) that it must be blocked
– even from manifesting in those around her. She is careful to choose friends like herself, who
do not think critically and don’t rock boats. It can hardly surprise a psychologist or astrologer
that one probable result might ultimately be neurological disorders, which Alice has indeed
begun to experience and rightly grow concerned about.
Saturn rules blockage and calcification, remember: in Gemini it blocks certain kinds of
communication, expression and even the neurons in the brain, where it synchronously depicts the
plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease.
On one hand, any remotely questioning remarks about God, religion or her received opinions
about any topic threaten Alice. She meets them with robotic glassy-eyed defiance – a startling
change in her usually sweet, people-pleasing demeanor – and literally walks away from them. It
reveals her utter and unconscious dependence on secondhand socially approved 'revealed'
religion (not directly inwardly experienced) for direction and security. To the degree her
religion is challenged or shown lacking or false through contradictory facts, her security falls
apart. She must withdraw or further isolate herself from sources or criticism or questioning. But
even alone or isolated, Alice cannot be quiet or go inward. "I have to be doing something."
On the other hand, Alice remarked more than once during sessions that "I’m not emotional." Her
entire self-image is carefully constructed in her own psychology and for external appearances
(her Taurus Sun at her Ascendant and Libra on her Sixth cusp of psychological self-integration)
to appear rational, level-headed, stable, balanced, thoughtful, unemotional, arts-and-beauty
loving, practical, conventional, conforming, materially secure, warm, generous and
conventionally pretty. Emotional scenes of any kind – even normal ones – are dismissed.
Not 'emotional?' What Alice means is she’s not emotionally demonstrative. Her ego, her pride,
her Taurus Sun and Leo Moon, her Libran psychological self-integration, depend on maintaining
the appearance of those traits just cataloged. Below the surface, however, dwells her Sun square
Pluto, a potent archetype implying far more than mere anger involving her animus and men in her
life: it points to unconscious rage.
William C. Davidson referred to Pluto as a "triple-strength Mars" in his medical lectures: but
Pluto’s archetype operates below consciousness unless brought to awareness through astrology
and psychology, unlike Mars’ more conscious archetype. That's why Pluto’s long-term negative
effects can be so destructive.
Alice’s rage, astrologically and psychologically, can be traced to age three (the number of
degrees separating her Sun-Pluto square) and the figurative 'death' of her abandoning alcoholic
father – the male animus archetypes of the Sun and Leo and the Fourth house. It would be one
thing if he had actually died. Then Alice could mourn, idealize and move on. But he didn’t. He
remained alive, rejecting and betraying her, her brother and mother and his marriage vows at her
age three. It's easy to say that she got over it and moved on. But the effects of the event (and that
Sun-square-Pluto in her chart) forcibly affected everything in her life from then on, emotionally
and materially. In Fixed signs, that early fear and rage never goes away. It can be transformed,
if consciously understood and treated. Optimally, such rejected spouses and children get
counseling or therapy – unheard of in 1947 small towns.
So Alice’s Sun-square-Pluto archetype involving her animus, males, her father, her husband, her
ego, her home and family (Pluto in her Fourth), her belief-systems about marriage and security
and foundations – all that is contained in her powerful Sun-square-Pluto configuration. It later
led, for understandably self-protective reasons on the surface, to choosing to marry a man who
betrayed Alice in another way – concealing his serious chronic illnesses and alcoholic
background out of his own needs for love and security and devotion (and power and control).
It is often true that we unconsciously choose people and situations later in life to reenact early
difficult or traumatic episodes, in hopes of healing them or making them turn out right. In Alice's
case, she unconsciously chose to marry a man who would betray her in other ways than her
father had. Her reaction was, to her, entirely healthy and self-affirming. She behaved
superlatively in the face of all her marital challenges, remaining loyal, loving, rock solid,
dependable and caring to the end. For Alice, those are deeply self-validating qualities she's
learned to love in herself. They were why she was put on Earth, as far as she's concerned.
Whatever early doubts about her self-worth Saturn square Neptune may have indicated, she
conquered them on at least those hugely self-affirming levels.
Note too the always-present (and nearly always unspoken) elements of power-and-control issues
where Pluto operates in hard aspect (and even in soft aspects, though with less obvious and
potentially damaging effects). Unconscious and unaddressed, those issues can wreak eventual
havoc on every area of a life, including psychological and physical health, despite superficial
appearances to the contrary.
It seems entirely natural and unremarkable, even predictable that, being ten years older, Alice’s
husband would eventually develop cancer or some other chronic age-related condition (he had
serious chronic illnesses long before he met her) and die a protracted (Fixed sign) death
ministered by Alice’s constant and loving presence. Natural and unremarkable until you think
about it.
Other women in identical circumstances with identical older husbands, but different horoscopes,
chose mates who were not secret alcoholics, were not impotent, did not conceal – till after
marriage – chronic multiple illnesses they’d coped with since childhood, and did not die
prematurely from lengthy struggles with illnesses.
Different horoscopes, different belief-systems, different outcomes.
Still, horoscopes and astrology cause nothing. As Jung knew, astrology’s archetypes are
synchronous with experiences, not causative.
Unacknowledged rage inevitably leads to relationships in which power and control are hidden
dynamics. Alice’s marriage had those in spades. Her older husband suffered his own issues as
the chronically ill, physically weak only son of "bad" (Alice’s word) alcoholics, though
wealthy. Power and control through money were his only real strengths. His persona was the
genial arrogance of the know-it-all who, exactly like Alice, rejected critical thinking and
parroted received opinions as his own. Both he and Alice reigned supreme in their conservative
small town. Nobody ever questioned or criticized them. They both reacted in the same
unconscious ways to challenges to their taken-for-granted superiority: displaying immediate,
rising, barely controlled blind rage and an instinctive cutting off and cutting out of offenders.
Given their backgrounds and horoscopes, their behavior is perfectly understandable. Alice’s
existence as a child, girl and young woman was totally dependent on pleasing everybody (Libra
on her empty Sixth house of psychological self-integration). Even her image and appearance, her
wardrobe through high school, weren’t her own: she dressed in another’s hand-me-downs from
a stylish, wealthy, year-older neighbor.
That’s a not inappropriate metaphor for Alice’s entire life, which has relied for effectiveness
and security on her Sensing Extravert function and blocking her Thinking and Feeling functions:
adopting opinions, behaviors, clothes, choices, actions, religion and even children handed her
by others – a path that's comfortably sustainable only by repressing the judging and thinking
functions.
Few would want to think existentially about all that unless they saw some benefit. The buried
treasure promised by astrology through Alice’s understanding her psychology of self-integration
is through finally realizing that the insecurity and rage she repressed beginning at age three, that
have forced and shaped her life since, are nothing to fear any longer as an adult: that her choices
were made as much out of love for herself and others, as for any other reasons.
But if Alice won’t let herself think through all that consciously (yes, it requires psychotherapy
to be safe and effective), to finally embrace and accept all of herself mentally and spiritually –
as would, presumably, the loving Heavenly Father she dresses to the nines and drives miles to
pray to every Sunday – she can never know it, own it, heal it. She will remain powerless over
the silent demon she’s locked inside her attic for nearly seventy years.
Astrology isn’t a parlor game.
Alice and I communicate only when she occasionally phones, today. Less than a year after her
husband’s death, Alice began showing signs of dementia despite otherwise apparent good health.
A stroke is also not unlikely, given her chart. I’ve not mentioned that, but have suggested,
because of her concerns about increasing 'forgetfulness', that she see her husband’s clinical
neurophysiologist, with whom she established great rapport and years of history through her
husband’s chronic brain disorders.
My original client, Alice's actress friend who first suggested she see me so many years ago, has
said that she and others have discussed Alice's increasing alcoholism and unfocused behavior:
losing keys, misplacing mail, neglecting bills, missing flights (she travels often, 'to get away')
getting lost while driving in her familiar town.
This is not to say, again, that her or her husband’s horoscopes or belief-systems or Jungian
typologies or archetypes cause alcoholism, epilepsy, cancer or dementia.
It is to say, again, that they are synchronous with those illnesses and reflected in horoscopes.
If some of the above sounds overly dramatic, or mere colorful metaphors and speculation on an
astrologer's part, or retrofitting astrology to jibe with facts, consider:
Pluto's archetype operates so deeply and far from consciousness that it is usually dismissed,
trivialized or taken-for-granted until it becomes impossible to ignore. Only astrology makes it
immediately apparent as something to be studied seriously in someone's life.
The first thing I asked Alice was about her Sun-Pluto square: to go back to her age three and
what happened with her father, because it was the key to everything else about her life.
Alice was (is) a 'control freak' (Saturn). Why? The answers became abundantly clear working
through her chart with her. Control was taken from her early on. Saturn in Gemini (Thinking
Introvert) is her shadow. Once she believed she'd regained control and power through marrying
it, that too turned out to be not what it seemed. But the financial and material security it provided
(external, not internal, control) has helped her continue to direct her focus outward, not inward.
In her birth chart, Alice has no planets in her Sixth house of 'health' and Libra on its cusp –
attractive, charming, Venus-ruled people-pleasing Libra. Apparent good health in life.
Venus (ruling her Sixth) is in her Twelfth, however: her only planet above-the-horizon in her
birth chart. Venus is in Aries – the head and brain. In Alice's chart for psychological self-
integration, Neptune is in her Twelfth (hidden conditions, subtle, difficult to diagnose or
misdiagnosed). In both charts, Neptune in Libra correlates absolutely and in detail to the facts of
Alice's life, including her marriage, her husband's alcoholism, alcoholism in both families for
generations, her husband's secret epilepsy and impotence, Alice's adopted children, et al.
Dementia and Alzheimer's are not normal parts of aging, statistically. Further, there are several
forms of dementia. In Alice's case, it is likely vascular dementia (blood vessels) because, as
we've seen, Saturn's planetary energy archetype (restriction, blockage, control, obstruction,
sclerosis, among other things) in Gemini ('tubes' and connections in the body, including blood
vessels, neurons and synapses) has long been chronically reflected in the outer circumstances of
Alice's life and her psychological reactions to them. 'Control freak.' It is no surprise they would
finally manifest physiologically as well. Saturn in Gemini, as mentioned, also rules the plaques
and tangles consistent with Alzheimer's.
The prevalence of vascular dementia ranges from 1 to 4 percent in people over age 65. Alice's
symptoms, according to friends, began to be noticed after her husband's death at her age 65 (loss
of the control and power she had married at 21).
Finally, all these characteristics are typical with how Pluto synchronously operates in astrology
– far beneath the surface, completely disregarded until 'too late.' Even when identified through
astrology, clients and physicians may well dismiss its indications, either because they deny its
implications ("I got over that a long time ago") and discard astrology itself; or because they don't
look for symptoms; or attribute symptoms to other or more superficial causes, failing to
recognize the depths at which this archetype acts.
The Outer Planets or collective archetypes help pinpoint a client’s relationship to generational
or collective elements in the group or in society – for good or ill, in strength or weakness, as
we’ve touched on with Alice.
Pluto’s position can indicate obsessive-compulsive behaviors; 'do-or-die' intractability; power
issues in relationship dynamics. At its most negative, it may point to potentials for emotional /
psychological destruction, violence, physical or sexual assault, and buried rage. At its most
positive, it indicates healing and renewal through surgery, powerful medications
(chemotherapy), conscious understanding (with professional psychotherapy) and transforming
past and present crises into ongoing strengths and triumphs through genuine power of – not
power over. The power of honest and loving self-awareness, not power over 'dangerous'
thoughts and feelings.
Neptune’s position (particularly in Alice's chart for psychological self-integration) can whisper
of secret behaviors, self-deceptions, delusions, seductions, betrayals, lies, fraud, scandals,
cheating, vulnerability, escapism, misdiagnoses, criminality, drug or alcohol issues, infections,
poisoning, sexually transmitted diseases and the contamination, blurring or weakening of
whatever it touches. Positively, Neptune promises ever-deeper illumination and limitless
compassion for self and others through understanding and letting go of (sacrificing) past
destructive beliefs, bad habits and associations: replacing them with Neptune's path to emotional
joy and metaphysical ecstasy through enlightened and conscious self-worth, experienced every
second of every day, waking and sleeping: a hallowed and long venerated kind of human
existence that is absolutely possible.
In Alice’s birth chart, you would probably have found all those keys regarding early financial
hardship, limited education, reliance on religion, family and marital secrets, dominant / inferior
types, and the Shadow . . . but you can't miss them in her psychological self-integration chart,
which reflects still greater insights into Alice’s psychology and life through her particular
looking glass.
 Before Time Began

It is a common misunderstanding to assume Carl Jung invented archetypes in 1919, millennia

after astrologers began observing planets’ motions and correlating them with events in human
lives.
It’s equally incorrect to assume Pythagoras invented the Pythagorean Theorem ("In a right-angled
triangle, the area of the square on the hypotenuse – the side opposite the right angle – equals the
sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides"), or that Einstein invented e = mc2 or the
photoelectric effect (the basis for quantum physics), any more than Newton invented gravity.
Mathematical principles and laws of physics governing the universe are discovered, not
invented. All of them and those yet undiscovered are archetypes that pre-exist the Big Bang –
itself an existential archetype.
The Golden Ratio is another archetype that’s occupied mathematicians, biologists, architects,
historians, artists, musicians and mystics for over 2,400 years.
There are pre-existing archetypes for mating, reproducing, mothering, fathering, chewing,
swallowing, vocalizing, walking, running, playing, fighting, imitating, learning, writing and so on
ad infinitum.
Jung theorized a unitary reality he called the unus mundus which underlies all phenomena.
Archetypes, to Jung, were mediators of the unus mundus; categorizing and organizing principles
and ideas in the psyche as well as in physical matter and in energy in all manifestations;
precisely the underlying premise of astrology.
The Nobel laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli agreed with Jung and believed that archetypes
actively link physical events and the minds of scientists who study them, reflecting the
perspective of Johannes Kepler.
Some astrologers and metaphysicians go even further and are fond of claiming that the mere act
of observing an event (e.g. an electron’s behavior) affects that event; what science calls the
"observer effect." Or that changing one electron (rubbing a diamond to heat its electrons, say)
necessarily changes other electrons somewhere in the universe since no two electrons can
simultaneously occupy identical energy states (the Pauli exclusion principle). But both claims
are superficial: neither is strictly true.
What is true for human behavior is that consciously observing it – to become consciously aware
of behavior patterns and their origins in order to understand them – does indeed change them.
Once you know something it’s impossible to un-know it. You may deny it, repress it, battle it or
bless it, but you cannot un-know it.
That fact forms the foundation of all psychology, where the goal is to identify, acknowledge and
heal dis-eased (stressful) psychological conditions. It is also the foundation of astrology, where
the goal is to identify and heal existential conditions using dynamic interactive archetypes within
natural cycles in Time and Space.
Archetypes not only order all our ideas and perceptions but are manifestations of a still greater
objective order that pre-exists and transcends human minds and external reality. Jung
emphasized that archetypes aren't separate concepts or pieces of existence like parts in a
machine: we must know the machine as a whole, which is an even greater archetype.
Jung wrote, "Since so many people have chosen to treat archetypes as if they were part of a
mechanical system that can be learned by rote [as many astrologers learn and practice
astrology], it is essential to insist that they are not mere names or even philosophical concepts.
They are pieces of life itself – images that are integrally connected to the individual by the
bridge of the emotions."
Jung’s analytical psychology stresses the importance of experiential encounters with archetypes.
"In psychology, where we speak of archetypes like the anima and animus, the wise man, the great
mother, and so on . . . if they are mere images whose numinosity you have never experienced, it
will be as if you were talking in a dream, for you will not know what you are talking about . . .
their names mean very little, whereas the way they are related to you is all-important."
Astrology, as Jung understood, affords a unique natural and dynamic tool for encountering and
comprehending archetypes in relation to individuals' existence within Time and Space.
The horoscope’s Sixth house is one’s personal archetype for 'putting it all together'
psychologically and physiologically: mind-body self-integration (or dis-integration).
All archetypes – of Big Bangs, black holes, galaxies, stars, planets, gravity, anti-gravity, matter,
anti-matter, atoms, electrons, nuclei, fusion, fission, orbits, breathing, eating, excreting, mating,
reproducing, clothing, sheltering, hunting, raising crops, drawing, painting, making music,
worshiping – pre-exist our births on earth in time and space.
In that sense the archetypes in horoscopes await discovery exactly as Newton discovered the
archetypes of gravity and Einstein discovered the archetypes of relativity. Your horoscope's
archetypes pre-exist you, ready for you to bring them to life here and now, for a time. You're
bringing them to life in any case, whether you realize it or not: astrology (and psychology) makes
them conscious and meaningful instead of random and unfathomable – and helps inform you
when, how and why.
 Archetypes in the Present Moment

One of the most striking demonstrations of how astrology’s ancient archetypes apply to anybody
in the present moment first occurred to me when I was invited to speak for a group the 1980s. I
still use the beautiful leather briefcase they presented me afterwards.
I arrived early. On a whim, I placed a legal pad and pen on the first table by the entry. As guests
arrived, I introduced myself and had them print their names the moment they stepped inside. I
remained there to make sure they listed their names in correct order. Which one of a couple, say,
entered the room first? Their order of arrival was crucial to what I planned to demonstrate.
Some twenty-five people showed up, signed their names as requested, and took their seats.
I’d erected a horoscope for the time of that night’s presentation, an event chart I’d already drawn
on my large whiteboard on its easel. It’s no surprise to astrologers that events have birth charts:
we use them all the time.
In classes in Los Angeles I’ve especially enjoyed teaching techniques for using astrology at the
race track, then attending Santa Anita or Hollywood Park for a day with students and their
families to test the techniques on the ponies. (I have a lousy chart for gambling, so I only choose
days when I’m likeliest to do well.) Each post time establishes the birth chart for that race. It’s
easy enough to erect a horoscope for the first race then mentally adjust the Ascendant one degree
per four minutes of time as the day at the track wears on. To laymen, it never occurs that any
significant moment whose beginning can be pinpointed in time has a 'birth' horoscope that can be
studied for its future development.
I like to look at event charts before speaking for groups or teaching workshops to gain insights
into my focus for the group. That evening thirty-odd years ago, there were only one or two
students of astrology: the curious others were from all walks of life and all ages – twenties to
eighties.
I explained astrology in general – what it can and cannot do; what its archetypes and symbols
represent; how ephemerides are derived from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena; what
the implications are from planetary positions and seasonal cycles synchronously correlating to
themes, situations and events in individuals’ lives.
Then the fun began.
Though it was the first time I’d tried this technique with a group, it never crossed my mind that it
wouldn’t work.
For the two students of astrology who were attending, I explained that this was the horoscope for
tonight’s talk as a whole. Amazingly, both I as the speaker (represented at the Tenth house of the
'authority' and 'leader') and all twenty-five attendees were shown in detail as individuals –
according to their order of arrival (the first to arrive being shown at the Fifth of 'students').
Using Derivative Houses, an horary technique also used in natal charts, I spent a minute or two
talking about situations or events in each of their recent pasts, their immediate presents, and their
probable futures . . . answering questions as they arose.
I promised I wouldn’t bring up anything embarrassing: I simply wanted to demonstrate how
astrology’s archetypes depict the ordering and significance of moments in time for each person
there; how collective experiences like that night’s gathering hold different importance and
meanings for each one present.
The results astounded them (and pleased me). Specifics like moves, trips, job changes, income
tax issues needing resolution, relatives and friends at a distance, people from the past coming
back into their lives, even general health matters in some cases . . . on and on came snapshots of
their lives at that moment.
Several contacted me within the next few weeks to remind me of something the chart had shown
that they knew nothing about – yet which had indeed later taken place exactly on astrology's
schedule. Several more booked appointments for readings.
It’s a stunt demonstration of astrology, true; but an impressive one illustrating with great impact
how astrology’s symbols and principles relate to real lives and situations. It’s not a
demonstration I often use with students in classes or at astrology conferences, since they already
know astrology works.
But it makes laypeople’s and skeptics’ jaws drop.
 The Last Laugh

Brash comedian Joan Rivers (who, like many Geminis with or without plastic surgery,
maintains a youthful energy and outlook belying her 80 years) swears she is shy offstage and
barely speaks at parties unless she knows the other guests well. Hard to believe, given her take-
no-prisoners stage persona. But she’s never claimed to hold back once she really knows people.
Nor is 'shyness' the same as Jung’s introversion.
I’d not intended to analyze her horoscope, but let’s look at it.
Joan Rivers is rare among celebrities in publicly documenting intimate details of her life,
affording astrologers an unusual opportunity to correlate them with her horoscope. In most cases
of astrologers analyzing celebrities’ charts (which can only be verified by events that have been
published, often secondhand), such wealth of confirmed exterior and interior personal detail is
usually unavailable.
Then again, Geminis generally love to talk.
We know far more about Joan Rivers’ family background, upbringing, relationships and
psychology – from her own mouth – than we will ever know with certainty about Madonna or
Michael Jackson or European royalty or national leaders, thanks partly to a remarkable hour-
long televised session with Britain’s Dr. Pamela Stephenson; an equally revealing chat with
comedian Dawn French; and several hour-long appearances on Howard Stern’s show.
Rivers (see chart below) has four planets in Air (Thinking), three in Earth (Sensing), two in Fire
(Intuitive) and only Pluto in Water (Feeling), with her North Node. But Pluto and the Nodes
operate entirely collectively unless connected by aspects with personal planets. Rivers’ Moon
(her birth time has a Rodden Rating of A) inconjuncts Pluto in Cancer by five degrees, an uneasy
tie of almost perpetual dissatisfaction and adjustment (in this case with the emotional or Feeling
type) and an endless attempt to make things 'right'.
It’s common for people with dominant Thinking to have inferior Feeling. Rivers says her
Russian-born mother was not physically demonstrative with love or affection: she was raised in
an upper class Russian family by governesses who brought her in at five every afternoon for tea
with her own mother. Rivers’ Russian-born physician father, by contrast, was a warm, funny,
unpretentious man of the people who worked extremely hard to fulfill his wife’s upper class
aspirations (not always successfully: Rivers says her most humiliating childhood experiences
were having to hand tuition checks to her private school headmasters and ask them to hold the
check for a week or two).
What Rivers claims is her social 'shyness' around strangers is confirmed by her Saturn
(inferiority, rejection, discomfort, among other things) in social Aquarius in her Eleventh of
social groups – inconjunct her Sixth house (body image, psychology) Mars (ruling her Aries
Ascendant of her body and appearance) and also inconjunct her Sixth house Jupiter and Neptune
(wide, but I’d include them), reflecting her acute lifelong dislike of her body and appearance,
her liposuctions and plastic surgeries (Mars), and her obsession with work (Sixth).
Rivers' is another unmistakable illustration of the Sixth house depicting one’s psychological (and
physiological) self-integration throughout a lifetime.
"I was an actress from the time my eyes opened," Rivers says. "I knew at four that I wanted it. I
didn’t have any choice. All I ever wanted was to go into the theatre." Neptune is the classic
archetype of theatre and actors. Her observation that many performers are innately shy is true:
acting can be a means of compensating for and hiding all sorts of childhood ills, real or
perceived: humiliation, rejection, prejudice, shame, anger and rage. Rivers claims to be "angry
about everything," saying anger fuels her comedy.
Rivers’ 2013 book, "I Hate Everyone . . . Starting With Me," was notoriously (and
ridiculously) banned by Costco (Saturn in the Eleventh; public censure). With the comedian’s
typical exaggeration for effect and her genius for turning lemons into lemonade, Rivers delighted
in being banned. She staged a protest outside Costco, chaining herself to a shopping cart,
videotaped by her own crew – then carried her riotous ridicule of Costco onto The View, David
Letterman and Howard Stern, laughing all the way to the bank as her book instantly became a
best seller.
Mercury and its signs Gemini and Virgo are strong components of verbal and intellectual humor
in general. The best comedians, though they play the Fool, are enormously observant and
intelligent. Rivers’ Gemini humor is often quicker, lighter, sharper and fuller of astute and
surprising juxtapositions than most comedians'. Virgo’s humor (Rivers’ Sixth house cusp) is
different from Gemini’s. It can be scathingly sarcastic; verbally shredding pretense to ribbons
and slicing hypocrisy with surgical precision. Rivers’ Sixth house marks her as a potential
master of incisive critical observation from birth – and so she was, she says. "Even as a child I
was never ha-ha funny. There was always a wit." Her Virgo Sixth house also marks her as
relentlessly critical of herself, others, and life itself; incapable of ever feeling satisfied or
content for long.
"I grew up during the war. So I liked to pretend I was a spy. A fat ugly spy," she laughs.
Virgo on her Sixth cusp is the natural sign of analysis, filtering, categorizing,
compartmentalizing, breaking down and integrating. It rules those processes in the physical body
(digestion, intestines, etc.) and in the mind, on this house of psychological self-integration.
Rivers’ body- and image-issues are legendary. She is a tiny woman who was told she was
beautiful as an infant and small child, then started becoming fat – her word – (Jupiter of excess
in her Sixth of body-image) and unattractive around five or six, exactly on schedule with her
Moon-Pluto inconjunct separated by five and a half degrees. Indeed, in her interview with Dr.
Pamela Stephenson, it becomes clear that this was the defining transformative event of Rivers'
life from then on: her hated body.
"Instead of growing taller this way, I spread out this way." Her source of feeling unattractive
was her impression of reactions from those around her – society’s judgment (Saturn in collective
Aquarius). "I was never the pretty girl. Always the outsider. As I still am today." What's her
least favorite body part? "My thighs." (Moon in Sagittarius.) "They've never been my friend.
They're never getting a Christmas card."
Short, fat, ugly (Rivers’ word), Jewish, with Russian parents, an upwardly-mobile
undemonstrative mother who longed to regain the old-world class status her family enjoyed in
Russia (abandoned because of rising anti-Semitism), unpopular, excluded and an outsider,
Rivers was obsessed with and determined to go into the theatre. "I was like a race horse with
blinders." (Moon in Sagittarius of horses, as she herself describes her life: a competitive race.)
"It’s all I could see. So it didn’t matter that I wasn’t the pretty girl. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t
popular."
On stage, Rivers could say everything she had to restrain privately. Food became her means of
comfort and control early on. After her husband’s suicide she became bulimic for two years, ("I
loved it! I was down to a size two Valentino!") until her psychiatrist warned what it would do to
her heart, esophagus, voice and teeth.
Money was also an early obsession: "The one who has the money has the power. I always
wanted my own money."
Look at her chart. All that and more is echoed in Rivers’ relentlessly ambitious and determined
T-Square – her Sun-Moon opposition focused on her Sixth house Mars, Jupiter and Neptune.
Sun-Moon oppositions are notable indicators of parents who are stressed and at odds in
fundamental ways – at least to the child born under the opposition. It doesn’t necessarily mean
the parents had a 'bad' marriage: just a stressful one usually characterized by conflicting or
competing goals. Other planets may form trines or sextiles to the opposition that help mitigate the
stress. But children born with T-Squares to a Sun-Moon opposition typically cannot please one
parent without betraying the other. So they naturally learn, quite consciously and early, to play
roles.
In Rivers’ case, her father was a workaholic (as many physicians are). He was a genuine and
dedicated doctor whose patients often lacked money and paid with food or other items and
services. He had to work long hours to keep Rivers’ mother happy and surrounded with material
status about which he himself cared little. Mrs. Rivers (Molinsky) spent, spent, spent – and
arguments with her husband were always about money, says Rivers, whose Moon in Sagittarius
reflects the Fire sign impressionability of a mother-figure preoccupied with impressing others
(intellectually or materially). Rivers herself admittedly likes to 'live high.' She describes her
elegant New York apartment as, "Marie Antoinette would have lived like this if she'd had
money."
Rivers' father, because of his patients, was not always home for dinner and could be called
away on emergencies at a moment’s notice. So Joan and her sister Barbara learned to rely on
their mother, who demanded much from her girls in the way of achievements and 'comportment.'
(Rivers graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard.)
Coupled with the natural ambition that accompanies T-Squares, and her show business
determination and compulsion to put on a bright face so the show could go on (an obsession
demanded by that perilous profession), Rivers also exhibits the T-Square’s compulsive desire to
work (or, in types who react negatively to that square, to suffer disabilities or dysfunctions that
excuse or prevent work). Virgo (natural sign of work and occupation) on her Sixth house cusp
(again of work and occupation as well as psychological self-integration) is reflected in Rivers’
trailblazing career as both comedian and merchant (her hugely successful line of jewelry and
accessories for QVC).
Something else is powerfully shown in Rivers’ Sixth house psychology of self-integration:
namely, Jupiter’s archetype of eternal hope, confidence, expectation of success, optimism and
growth. Jupiter’s T-Square to Rivers’ Sun-Moon opposition stresses and exaggerates Jupiter’s
central role in her psychology. It rules her outspoken, argumentative Moon in Sagittarius (also
highlighting the endless travel connected with her life and work). Nothing stops Rivers or holds
her back, except death. Even then, when it comes, she will have the last word, the last laugh!
You watch.
All of that, including her eating disorders, body and image issues, social inferiority, reactions to
anti-Semitism, her own brush with suicide – saved, she says, by her mangy Yorkie, Spike, who
jumped onto her lap and lay on top of the gun – and her birthright mission to succeed in show
business (a career notoriously full of rejection, whose anthem is to hide one’s personal
problems no matter what and to put on a happy face) – is evident in her Sixth house of
psychological self-integration.
"Humor gets you through everything. I have friends who are dying and I call them up and make
them laugh. That's my job. It's the reason I was put on earth."
Every tidbit of Rivers' life, happy and sad, big and small, feeds her trying to integrate the
components of her upbringing and psychology, including her hyper-critical Virgo assertion,
despite being one of highest-paid and longest-lasting comedians in history, "I haven’t
accomplished anything. I never got that play . . . never got the sitcom . . . I’ve accomplished very
little." What occupation does she list on her passport? "Writer." Not comedian? "That’s the
lowest form. ‘She’s a comic.’"
The seemingly cold pragmatism of Virgo on Rivers’ Sixth cusp, "What are you gonna do? You
either die or you move on," is life in a nutshell: a cut-and-dried utterly realistic philosophy of
self-integration. Plus humor. "Humor dilutes everything," she says. "All my friends are dropping
like flies," she laughs at 80. "But I’m in perfect health. That’s the joke!" That makes sense, since
she admits she goes to doctors "all the time."
As an astrologer, if you deeply study and analyze a person’s Sixth house, you can learn more of
the truth about their horoscope – how they view themselves and their lives; what they make (or
don’t) of themselves and their lives – than through any other single focus of their chart.
The sign on their Sixth house; any planet or planets in their Sixth; the ruler of their Sixth; and
aspects to those tell you everything. It’s the house of the mind-body connection and self-
integration.
When I first began practicing astrology in the 60s, the mind-body connection was fully
acknowledged by astrologers and metaphysicians, though less readily accepted by medical
scientists, who dismissed it as so much Napoleon Hill "Think and Grow Rich" pablum.
Every decade since has brought more research validating the astounding correlations between
one’s belief systems about oneself and about life – and physical and mental health including
prognoses of recovery from illnesses. Not surprisingly, then, the Sixth house depicts physical as
well as psychological states of ease or dis-ease and illnesses to which people are prone (as do
other elements in the chart). The house becomes a key factor in estimating reactions to crises,
general health, debilities and disabilities, length of life, self-destructive possibilities and type of
death.
We’ve already touched on another inherent property of the Sixth house that is essential for
understanding its role in psychological self-integration: its relation to the Ascendant.
The Sixth house forms an inconjunct angle (150°) with the First house. The inconjunct is said to
be a 'minor' stress aspect (compared to squares and oppositions) of constant adjustment and
readjustment, not dissimilar to properties shared with Virgo, the natural Sixth sign. But it's every
bit as significant and powerful as other 'stress' or 'hard' aspects.
Like Virgo and the inconjunct, the Sixth house of psychological self-integration is never
satisfied, complete, at ease or at rest. Its natural function is to constantly adjust, analyze,
compartmentalize, fix, judge, perfect, refine, solve and sort. But its deeper archetype is to serve.
Its real service – its duty – is self-integration. It is only when its archetypes are ignored or
operate unconsciously that their negative polarities serve to dis-integrate.
The Sixth house presents the archetypes naturally utilized by the Self to serve its optimal
integration and self-assessment, which are always being adjusted in ways large and small to
meet the endless stream of variables arising to confront it in everyday living, internally and
externally.
The Los Angeles Police Department coined its motto, "To Protect and to Serve" in 1955, but it’s
eternally appropriate for characterizing astrology’s Sixth house. Like any good servant, the Sixth
house functions to fully protect and serve the belief systems – negative and positive – of its
masters (all the other archetypes in the chart). Astrology’s overriding mission, again, is to make
people conscious of what they are and what they choose to do, by honestly and deeply exploring
their beliefs within Time and Space.
Beliefs may or may not be facts, though they give every appearance of being so. Through
conscious awareness, beliefs can be changed, altering the results one creates as one moves
through life (see "Using Degrees.")
The Sixth house of psychological self-integration by definition (its inconjunct angle to the First
house) is in a never-satisfied relationship to one’s First house persona, which in Jungian
psychology is the social mask we present to the world to create certain impressions – and often
to conceal our true natures.
Stress aspects to planetary archetypes in the already stressful Sixth house will obviously
contribute in rather specific ways to self dis-integration unless the corresponding beliefs are
made conscious and integrated (e.g. through astrology and psychotherapy). Thus mental and
physical disorders are often first located in this house. The Sixth house ruler, its placement and
aspects, further illuminate such conditions and offer greater detail regarding origins, externalized
expression and behavior, and treatment.
Simplistically, the sign on the Sixth house cusp is key both to self-integration (if its ruler and any
planets in the house are harmoniously aspected and consciously understood) or
self-disintegration (if inharmoniously aspected and unconscious or reactive).
 The Sixth House and the Other

F ascinatingly, the Sixth house archetypes are also the Twelfth house archetypes of a spouse,
business partner, close friend, professional colleague, opponent or competitor (all archetypally
shown at the Seventh house) – as experienced through the Self.
What astrology suggests, and what's strikingly apparent in practice, is that people are
unconsciously drawn to their most direct and closest associations with others whose archetypes
of 'self-undoing' (Twelfth) are symbolized by the characteristics of the client’s Sixth house of
'self-integration' – from the client’s perspective and experience of those close associates.
In effect, "My Sixth house is your Twelfth house. And vice versa."
Idealistically and romantically, this offers the potential for finding true 'helpmeets' in love and
close personal and business or professional ties. (Professional counselors of all types are also
shown at the Seventh – including physicians, attorneys, astrologers, etc.) In ideal archetypal
relationships, one’s own self-integrative strengths can 'help' the other overcome their archetypes
of 'self-undoing,' and vice versa. This ideal requires mutual consciousness, acceptance, trust,
understanding, forgiveness and respect; and only approaches but never reaches perfection.
Expectations of perfection are unrealistic and impossible, given human nature and the realities of
everyone’s Sixth house of self-integration. There is always another flaw or fly in the ointment to
be eliminated, another itch to be scratched, another wound to be salved and bandaged, another
personal inadequacy to be acknowledged and healed.
We’ve seen, for instance, that Joan Rivers’ Sixth house of self-integration is based on her
obsession with work (Virgo, Mars), the theatre (Neptune), the expectation of overcoming all
obstacles (ever-optimistic Jupiter, though it’s Detrimented in worrisome, nit-picky, often self-
frustrating Virgo) – in T-Square (ambition, competitiveness, obstacles, losses, hardships) with
her Sun-Moon opposition (difficulty resolving inner anima-animus conflicts, reflected in her
Father-Mother experience) and issues with her body and appearance.
That same T-Square in a woman's chart can classically denote potentials for divorce as well as
difficulties or loss through pregnancy and childbirth. Rivers had a short-lived marriage and
divorce before her later marriage to Edgar. Though she wanted more children, Melissa is her
only child. Rivers underwent ectopic pregnancy and three miscarriages. Even in fertility and
childbirth, then, her hated (her word) body betrayed her in womanhood as it had (she believes)
since age five or six.
Her Sixth house planets are also inconjunct Saturn (ambition, professionalism, but also
depression, outsider status, isolation, separation, divorce, death) in the social and collective
archetype of Aquarius, in the social and collective Eleventh house.
Her Saturn placement is her husband’s Fifth house archetype by Derivative houses, starting with
her Seventh of her marriage partner. Eventually – without couples' therapy or fully conscious
mutual understanding and communication – she would feel that Edgar – or any man in a
marriage-like relationship with her – is ultimately unable to give her love on her terms, or to
love her. How could they? She’s always believed she’s fat, ugly, with a bad body: unlovable.
Her last relationship of nine years ("The love of my life") with an older, wealthy one-legged
war veteran – "A marvelous man" – ended when she discovered he "betrayed" her by seeing (but
not sleeping with) two other women for lunches, giving them expensive gifts and letting them use
his credit card. "I never spoke to him again" (perhaps Gemini's ultimate punishment).
It is beyond the scope of this book to go into details about suicidal indications in astrology. But
it’s been mentioned that Uranus (and Aquarius, its sign) is often prominent in suicides, as well
as Saturn (depression, obstruction, stoppage) and Mars (guns, anger, violence) and / or Neptune
(poisons, gases – carbon monoxide – or drug overdoses).
Rivers’ Sixth house workaholic theatrical obsession, which she consciously exploited,
maximized and developed into a high art form and lengthy precedent-setting career unique for
any woman in the history of comedy . . . becomes precisely the archetype in Edgar that she
ultimately recognized as "weak" and a "bad businessman" (her words) though she considered
him "very smart."
Edgar Rosenberg so alienated Fox that the network demanded Rivers dump him as producer of
her show. When she refused, Fox terminated her contract on the spot. "Tomorrow’s your last
night." She later said she regretted making that grand gesture; that Edgar should have bowed out
on his own initiative, since they both knew his behind-the-scenes behavior, not her on-air
performance or ratings, was the cause of the crisis with Fox.
Consciously or unconsciously, Rosenberg’s behavior destroyed his wife’s career for nearly
seven years afterward (a Saturn cycle familiar to astrologers). Consciously or unconsciously,
Rivers chose a husband (and a manger – Billy – and a business partner who took her company
public then absconded with the equivalent of $100 million – and a mentor, Johnny Carson – who
never spoke to her again after Fox gave her her own show, and a psychotherapist who ultimately
died of AIDS while Rivers was in his room – "I’m not equipped to handle that: he’s the
therapist, not me" – and "the love of my life") who all ultimately "betrayed" her.
All the qualities of her Sixth house that Rivers conscientiously labored to capitalize on through
hard work, continual refinement and improvement (including psychotherapy), ambition and
determination in a highly competitive profession . . . were exactly the qualities Edgar lacked but
feigned. Like all pretenders, his demands, stubborn self-importance (his wife was the talent and
the money maker, not Edgar, who invested her earnings badly and alienated network brass) and
inability to treat others professionally not only toppled him but Rivers too, who was forced to
fight for seven years to rebuild her career. Edgar’s response to the Fox debacle he created?
Debilitating depression, then suicide by pills. Rivers’ Sixth house is Edgar Rosenberg’s Twelfth
of 'self-undoing' and suicide, shown through Rivers’ horoscope.
"I’m still furious, twenty years later. I’ve never gotten over the anger. His suicide is not the
blanket that covers my life; I’m one of the luckiest women alive. I know that too. But when
people say, ‘Some day you’ll meet him again in heaven,' oh, NO I won’t. I’m not looking to see
him again. If he came back today, I'D kill him."
In the most basic parlance of astrology’s archetypes, the Fifth house symbolizes 'love given' and
the Eleventh represents 'love received.' It’s not that Rivers necessarily has trouble giving love to
audiences or others, with Leo on her Fifth: it’s that she has trouble receiving it, with Saturn in
her Eleventh. She admittedly loves her wit, her intelligence, her humor; but not the package they
come in.
Saturn in the Eleventh often unconsciously pushes love away in one form or another. People with
these configurations will only be drawn to long-term partners who ultimately don’t appear to or
actually cannot love them back, or who seem to or actually do betray them (from their point of
view, regardless of the others’ actual motives) thus vindicating and perpetuating their belief
systems about themselves. Potential partners capable of offering genuine love and stability are
likely to be viewed as dull, sexually uninteresting, not ambitious enough, the 'wrong' race or
whatever else it takes to reject their affections, however authentically offered.
Understanding and changing one’s belief systems, even with psychotherapy as in Rivers’ life, is
not quick or easy. But it is far from impossible. Perhaps there is a mode and process other than
astrology that makes one’s beliefs and archetypes and their origins and interactions during
specific cycles in Time and Space so graphically clear and conscious for individuals and their
therapists, but I’ve not found it.
Rivers was "a fat, ugly" outsider as a girl. But note how she's used all of it to "protect and to
serve" The Act; her comedy. "I couldn’t make comments about what they’re wearing or how they
look if I were really their friend. Friends don’t do that. So I’m in nobody’s circle. I’m never
invited to those wonderful dinners with Woody. I never get asked out by Jay. But I can’t be, and
do what I do." Her outsider status feeds and preserves her career, then. So does her anger.
"Anger fuels comedy."
As an astrologer for fifty years, I’m still astounded by the degree to which horoscopes so
accurately mirror the inner and outer psychological and physical realities of one’s chosen
partners and closest friends, much less oneself. It extends back to at least Plato and even farther,
the philosophical and metaphysical notion that we project reality; that "the stars are inside our
head" (See "Astrology Rising" in this series).
Yet it’s apparent to anyone who seriously and objectively studies astrology that the phenomenon
is true: from Joan Rivers’ husband’s suicide to my early client’s husband’s Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
No wonder such monumental efforts are expended to denounce and ridicule astrology: its
principles suggest staggering implications about the nature of Creation itself – of All That Is –
the ultimate archetype, after all. It is those existential implications, I think, that make acceptance
of astrology impossible for certain kinds of minds.
If we as individuals are somehow the same thing as – or even intimately related to – orbits of
the Earth and other planets around the Sun in our solar system; if inner and outer themes,
behaviors and events in human psychologies and physiologies are echoed in astronomy's
dynamic interstellar and mathematic relationships – "No! It cannot be!"
But it is.
 Jungian Types and the Sixth Cusp

P sychological typology has profound influence on everything from career choices, body weight,
health, hair styles, clothing, recreational outlets, hobbies, cars, home décor, religious beliefs,
how we handle money, love, marriage, parenting, our philosophy of life and our world view.
The goal of Jungian typology (one goal, anyway) is to become conscious of our inherent
personality type and – recognizing it – honor it by living in harmony with it. That’s an essential
secret of happiness.
Alice (above) is a dominant Sensing Extravert with a shadow function of Thinking Introvert.
Her Libra-ruled Sixth house suggests her psychological self-integration is Thinking Extravert,
which might or might not constitute a true auxiliary function. It is ruled by people-pleasing
Venus in usually extraverted Aries but in the introverted Twelfth house. Those are two
indicators for extravert psychological self-integration (Cardinal Libra and Aries), one for
introvert (Twelfth House).
Alice’s Venus squares Mars (extravert) in Cancer (introvert). Her Mars (action, assertion,
anger, initiative) in emotional Cancer acts in highly self-protective and often unconscious ways
to surround itself with a fortress of home and family and tradition, always motivated by security
needs (material as well as psychological). That gives a total of three extravert indicators to two
introvert.
Her Venus sextiles Saturn (introvert) in malleable, adaptable dualistic Gemini (which,
chameleon-like, assumes the coloration of whatever touches it, or vice versa). That brings
Alice’s introvert-extravert total to an even three for both attitudes.
Her Venus trines Jupiter in Leo (extravert) in an angle (extravert). That’s five indicators for
extravert psychological self-integration, to three for introvert.
So Alice’s overall dominant function is Sensing Extravert but her psychological self-integration
type is Thinking Extravert. Her Shadow or inferior function and attitude is Thinking Introvert.
Astrology unmistakably, and in many ways as we've seen, shows Alice’s resistance to her
Thinking Introvert function. That’s borne out across her lifetime. Though she’s aware she has
"problems, like everybody," she has never sought counseling and dismisses the notion that she
needs it or that it might be helpful. Instead, she participates in book clubs, dream workshops
(sponsored by her church) and other Thinking Extravert activities that maintain her distance from
her Thinking Introvert shadow.
Alice’s psychological self-integration chart (with her Sixth at the Ascendant) strongly reinforces
her extravert attitude: everything is above the horizon. It goes even further. Her original Sixth
house Neptune appears in her Twelfh of her self-integration chart. Neptune’s archetypal promise
of self-integration through clarifying all the confusion (alcoholism, deceit, betrayal,
abandonment, rejection, concealed dysfunctions) into which she was born and conditioned to
believe are facts . . . pose such a danger that if she were to actually undergo attempted
individuation through Jungian analytical psychology she runs the real probability of initially
unleashing serious and perhaps terrifying psychological and / or physical illnesses, before
continuing on to healing and finally individuation. Her encounter with her Neptune archetype
would, of necessity, destroy every illusion about herself and her life. But 'illusions' and
appearances are the essence of her life, so where would that leave her? Understandably, she's
consistently shunned individuation.
It is likely that Alice intuitively and emotionally knows that, and at seventy would rather hold
onto the safe, contained structures she has built to now.
She presents an astrologer or psychologist with the all-too-common living example of the
unacknowledged shadow, now finally emerging – synchronously – as dementia and perhaps
stroke or other neurological conditions.
Had she chosen to undergo analysis at an earlier age (why would she, given her Jungian type and
a superficially happy marriage and material wealth?) she would have likely met with threats
from a terrified and enraged husband – unless he could have been persuaded to commit to joint
counseling – then found her marriage and security dissolving (Neptune) unless her husband also
got well with her – and been out on her own in the world with no education or training. She and
her husband were both Fixed signs: Taurus and Scorpio. Those do not preclude change, but do
make resistance to it inevitable.
To the degree that all of this can be seen so clearly in her chart, it offers valuable lessons to
astrologers about real lives and real people.
The first is that Hope cannot be undermined or shattered in clients’ lives. It is one thing to see or
realize ideals of individuation and health in clients’ charts, and to make value judgments about
those. It is another, and more important, to recognize the genuine threats to people’s lives that
can be posed by failing to explore the consequences of a client acting naively on an astrologer’s
well-meaning but equally naïve advice.
Astrologers are not required to say everything they see.
In Alice’s situation, were she genuinely interested (earlier in her life, perhaps) in recognizing
and solving perceived problems; and were she able to persuade her husband to take equal
interest in that mission; and were they able to commit to joint therapy with an effective
psychotherapist; and were that therapist to take advantage of the insights astrology could offer;
then such a course of action might have been invaluable and even prevented later conditions.
That is what is meant by "changing your future" or "changing your fate" through astrology.
But it’s essential to respect that all forms of self-expression and choices in living are valid, for
different people. Some individuals want to change their 'fates'. Many do not. Some are willing to
undergo individuation, including its risks. Others had rather live with the devils they know, and
risk the consequences later.
I have seen clients in situations similar to Alice’s who gave up materially comfortable former
lives (though that might not have been their conscious intent) to become whole individuals, who
ultimately became Walmart greeters. Happy Walmart greeters.
I’ve also worked with therapists who’ve used astrology’s insights to guide patients along the
process of individuation all the way through to healthy and happy self-realization and lives lived
in the kind of joy that mystics promise.
 Signs on the Sixth House -- Elements and Qualities

The Type of psychological self-integration shown through astrology's Sixth house, recall, will
often not be the same as the dominant Jungian Type. It may prove to be an auxiliary or inferior
type or even the shadow. If one’s Sixth house type is the shadow, one’s psychological self-
integration is largely unconscious and at the mercy of repressed and often negative expressions,
without analysis and psychotherapy.

Fire Signs and the Sixth – Intuition (Perceiving)

Aries, Leo or Sagittarius on the Sixth cusp is completely different than the ruler of the Sixth in
Fire signs. The ruler of the Sixth in a Fire sign describes the innate energy of the psyche's self-
integration as Intuitive. Fire signs on the Sixth cusp describe one's conditioning toward self-
integration as Intuitive, which may be entirely superficial, artificial and not inherent.
Fire signs on this cusp, for instance, will often indicate parental (or other) conditioning toward
impressionability: mistaking outer appearances for inner worth. These types are swayed by big
cars, big houses, big bank accounts, numerous diplomas – without ever questioning whether
those outer trappings of success or education reflect legitimate pursuits or authentic self-
realization. Such people might buy degrees from the notorious (now defunct) Belford University,
a non-existent 'school' established solely for the purpose of selling phony diplomas. They may
toot their own horns instead of letting their genuine accomplishments and intelligence be
spontaneously appreciated by others. These are the types of whom it is said, "If you have to tell
everybody how great you are, you aren't."
By contrast, planets (energies) in Fire signs in the Sixth house, or the ruler of the Sixth in a Fire
sign, can point to an authentic Intuitive type of psychological self-integration. In the Equal house
system, a Fire sign on this cusp denotes a Water sign (Feeling persona) on the Ascendant, again
reflecting the dichotomies between the persona and individuation.
Intuitive types (planets in Fire in the Sixth) perceive deeper inner possibilities and meanings in
people and situations. They can ignore details to concentrate instead on broader contexts or
'vibes.' They don't require proof or physical external evidence, but sense the directions in which
situations or people are moving. Their perceptions involve subtle underlying processes, inner
relationships and latent potentials – quite different from the Sensing perception of reality.
Instead, Intuition creatively and dynamically uses imagination and insights to see meanings in
situations that aren’t obvious to more objective participants or observers.

The Extraverted Intuitive type

These types perceive inner meanings, interconnections and possibilities. They're aware of what
isn't being said, and of broader significance and meanings that connect multiple situations and
contexts. They can make highly perceptive psychologists and astrologers because they're
knowledgeable about symbolism and the possible meanings of symbols as they appear in
people's clothing, jewelry, body language, facial expressions, etc. Extraverted Intuitives tend to
look past 'what is' to 'what could be'.
Because they're constantly looking for possibilities and hidden meanings, this type can be easily
diverted and seem unfocused or scattered and accident prone. Once they feel they do understand
the hidden meanings of people and things, however, they can lose interest. They require
stimulation, variety, change and new situations and people to renew themselves.
They can shift from project to project, always dreaming, seeking greener pastures, and ultimately
fritter away their lives by never completing anything. So caught up in their exciting visions are
they that they can seem egomaniacal and selfish, may unintentionally wound others, needlessly
insult people or seem completely impractical and unrealistic.
Their Inferior Sensing function may be repressed to the extent that they act out obsessive-
compulsive behaviors, hypochondria or phobias.

The Introverted Intuition Type

These are people aware of background processes and implications. They have a subjective,
unconscious view of the world and sense profound meanings or far-reaching symbolism without
external information or data. They can be good at conceptualizing new ways of seeing things.
They often don't understand their own motives, but are profoundly influenced by them, which
produce neurotic behavior. This type is often found in mystics, seers, religious fanatics, and
writers and artists who are dreamers and fantasists.
If the Introverted Intuition function is dominant, it delves inward toward the unconscious and
tries to understand internal events by connecting them to symbolic images or collective
psychological processes, which can produce profound artists, philosophers, physicians,
scientists or spiritual leaders. But undisciplined, untrained or uneducated, they may merely be
kooks or quacks.
The Introverted Intuitive can seem above and beyond it all, spaced-out, aloof from ordinary
people and activities and interests. They may have visionary ideals but feel no need to explain
or rationalize them. Great artists of this type can produce transcendent works that tap into the
collective unconscious of generations, though they may be misunderstood. But the undeveloped
of this type are so enraptured by their visions and ideals that their lives become symbolic Great
Quests or missions: Don Quixote’s impossible dream, waging wars against windmills.
Their need to dramatize otherwise ordinary lives may lead their Inferior Sensing function to
assume instinctual, primitive characteristics or hypochondria or obsessive-compulsive
behaviors.

Earth Signs and the Sixth – Sensing (Perceiving)

Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn on the Sixth cusp points to conditioning toward a Sensing type of
self-integration which may or may not be supported by the ruler of the Sixth in an Earth sign or
planets in an Earth sign in the Sixth. Such conditioning, taken alone, may discourage critical
thinking, analysis, "impractical" pursuits like the arts in favor of conforming to duty,
responsibility and practicality.
By contrast, the ruler of the Sixth in an Earth sign, or planets in the Sixth in an Earth sign, points
to a Sensing type of psychological self-integration. In the Equal house system, an Earth sign on
this cusp denotes a Fire sign (Intuitive persona) on the Ascendant.
Sensing refers to direct experience of the objective environment without evaluating it. Sensing
types perceive objects as they are – realistically and concretely. They don't think about context,
implications, meanings or alternate interpretations but instead prefer obtaining factual, detailed
information through the senses.

The Extraverted Sensing Type

These types prefer to stay oriented and focused in the immediate present context and to take
physical action. They accumulate experiences, always noticing people's visible reactions and
absorbing relevant information and data. They appear highly realistic and benefit-oriented.
They're aware of 'what is,' not 'what might be'.
With its powerful orientation toward the physical, Extravert Sensing types have perhaps the
strongest life impulse. They don't color perceptions with pre-existing beliefs: they perceive
things as they really are. They're well-suited to jobs requiring objectivity and neutrality, order,
routine, system, discipline, pragmatism.
If their Extravert Sensing function is too dominant, they can show an unscrupulous, acquisitive,
greedy or gluttonous side. If neurotic, they can exhibit all sorts of phobias.
They strive for intensity of stimulation through concrete objects and physical activities. Their
consciousness is directed outward.
These are the realists who are drawn to as many physical, visual and auditory sensing
experiences as possible. Experiences are ends in themselves and not to be colored with inner
meanings or interpretations. They're not introspective or reflective and generally don't trust inner
psychology. These are the types who blame moods on the weather or other people's speech and
behavior. They are often aesthetes or sensualists attracted by the physical traits and
characteristics of people and things. They like to dress well and entertain.
Negatively, they can exploit other people for their own pleasure or can be crudely pleasure-
loving. Repressed Intuition may be projected onto others, causing irrational jealousies and
suspicions. Or they may develop superstitious compulsions.

The Introverted Sensing Type

These types retain and recall past experiences and review everything new in light of those,
comparing 'what is' with 'what was.' They seek the security of the known. They can be
traditionalists and may seem passive and calm. Artistic expression can be strong. They believe
things and others relatively easily or gullibly. They interpret the world subjectively in light of
previous experiences, rather than seeing things objectively for what they are.
Introvert Sensing types superimpose subjective impressions on people and objects. Their
perceptions depend completely on their internal psychological processes rather than objectivity.
Their reactions may seem uncalled-for or inappropriate. They can also seem indifferent to
objective reality when objects or people don't pass their subjective lens.
Positively trained and developed, these people make fine creative artists. At its most negative,
however, the type may produce psychosis, hallucinations and dissociation from reality.
Repressed Intuition can perceive sinister threats and apprehensions or live in a personal fantasy
land.

Air Signs and the Sixth – Thinking (Judging)

Gemini, Libra or Aquarius on the Sixth cusp indicates a conditioning toward a Thinking type of
psychological self-integration, whether supported by planets (innate energies) in an Air sign in
the Sixth, or the ruler of the Sixth in an Air sign, or not. Absent planets in Air signs, this can
produce people who are encouraged to take a Thinking approach to life that is unnatural for
them. If they 'fail' to live up to the expectations of their Thinking conditioning, they may come to
feel they lack intelligence or even develop (or be born with) learning disorders and conditions
like dyslexia and stuttering.
On the other hand, those with planets in an Air sign in the Sixth or the ruler of the Sixth in an Air
sign may have an authentic Thinking type of psychological self-integration. In the Equal house
system, an Air sign on this cusp denotes an Earth sign (Sensing persona) on the Ascendant.
Thinking tends to evaluate everything from its truth or falsity based on rational intellectual
comprehension of things and their conceptual connections. Thinking is a systematic intellectual
process that wants to understand reality through analysis and logic.

The Extraverted Thinking Type

This type organizes, systematizes, structures, checks for consequences, monitors for standards
being met, sets guidelines and deadlines, has boundaries and decides if something is working or
not. It is a judging function that evaluates everything according to externally verifiable results
and effectiveness.
Negatively or when repressed, these types may obsess over details or become aggressive and
bossy.
They can be highly opinionated, perfectionists, uncompromising; placing strong demands on
themselves and others without consideration for their own or others' feelings when meeting
demands and deadlines.
Vocations connected with research, science or mathematics may have great appeal, but these are
not ivory tower thinkers and philosophers or meditative dreamers: thinking is meant to lead to a
subjective enterprise and private goal. They are guided by objective evidence of the senses or
by collective ideas passed on through tradition and learning. Their goal is to form abstract
concepts and connections from objective experience by linking ideas logically and rationally.
The conclusions they reach are always focused on practical outcomes.
They live by a universal moral or intellectual code based on abstract concepts of truth and
justice – and expect others to do the same. They tend to repress their Feeling function and are
usually unsentimental and nonreligious. They can even neglect their own physical or financial
well-being as a result of the abstract demands they impose on themselves.
Negatively, they can become petty tyrants or bigots – aggressively defending their code. If
Extraverted Thinking is repressed, they may exhibit various forms of 'immorality', self-seeking
pleasures, negative or destructive sexual behaviors or deceptions.

The Introverted Thinking Type

These types embody thinking for its own sake, directed inward toward subjective ideas and
personal convictions rather than outward toward pragmatic outcomes. They check for
inconsistencies, evaluate everything according to internal principles and whether something fits
their preconceived framework. They strive for definitions and precision and can be hypercritical
and pedantic.
They can be overly scrupulous and complex since their main focus is on elaborating the
ramifications and implications of an idea. They love theories for the sake of theory and can be
impractical. There is a risk that they will isolate themselves. They interpret their environment
subjectively and creatively and enjoy the inner play of thoughts and ideas, but always directed
toward their personal convictions instead of practical outcomes. They may even become
completely abstract or mystical.
This type can seem cold or arrogant. Their repressed Feeling function may express as childish
and naïve behavior. Wrapped up in their own thoughts, they may appear surly, prickly, brusque
or rigid. Criticism of their ideas is perceived as a personal attack or motivates them to strike
back with mean-spirited counterattacks.

Water Signs and the Sixth – Feeling (Judging)

Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces on the Sixth cusp indicates a conditioning toward a Feeling type of
psychological self-integration. If the ruler of the Sixth or planets in the Sixth is also in a Water
sign, the Feeling type may be authentic. If not, the shifting emotional dynamics they see around
them will seem irrational, unpredictable, incoherent and threatening. They may then retreat from
Feelings in various ways, or attempt to 'control' others' feelings.
By contrast, if the ruler of the Sixth is in a Water sign or planets in the Sixth are in a Water sign,
a genuine Feeling type of psychological self-integration is indicated. In the Equal house system,
a Water sign on this cusp denotes an Air sign (Thinking persona) on the Ascendant.
Feeling is an affective, sentimental function. It judges the value of things based on emotional
likes and dislikes. Experiences are perceived as good and bad, pleasant or unpleasant,
acceptable or unacceptable, rather than objectively.

The Extraverted Feeling Type

This type is highly sensitive to others and to the group, seeking to connect and maintain social or
organizational values and accommodate others. They weigh whether things are appropriate or
acceptable based on what people will think.
They are essentially altruistic and their feelings are formed along lines of conventionally
accepted and traditional social opinions and values They strive for harmonious relationships
with the collective.
When overly influenced by trying to conform to external opinion and tradition, they can seem
inauthentic, cold, unfeeling, results-driven and unreliable from frequently changing their
opinions and views to meet varying people and circumstances.
If thinking fails to validate their emotional convictions, it is ignored or repressed. When extreme
or neurotic, this type is the most subject to hysteria or manic-depression. Feelings may turn
extravagant or vary according to momentary enthusiasms that can suddenly reverse. They may
seem moody or, at another extreme, suffering from multiple personality disorders. Their
repressed thinking function can erupt in negative, childish, compulsive expressions that project
their most despised characteristics onto those they truly love and value.

The Introverted Feeling Type

This type prefers to show few emotions and to hide behind a mask. Their feelings are internal,
not externally shared. They constantly evaluate importance and worth based on the truths a
person, thing or situation embodies and whether it 'feels right.'
They may prefer to appear inconspicuous. They base judgments on subjective ideas and internal
beliefs and can defy social norms and ignore the majority's beliefs and attitudes. They seek an
inner intensity divorced from externals. Though they're inwardly deep, intense and passionate,
they often devalue objective reality and may seem indifferent, negative or hostile to it. As a
result, others can find them oppressive.
If neurotic, cruelty can emerge and they can be domineering or vain, inaccessible, dismissive or
brooding. Sometimes they adopt a childish mask. These types usually make no attempt to impress
and may seem unresponsive to others' feelings.
The effect of all this on others can be stifling. Taken to extremes, they can develop paranoia and
intricate secret schemes, or project their repressed thinking onto others, imagining they can read
minds and know what they're 'really' thinking.
 The Shadow

In analytical psychology, the shadow can mean the entire unconscious, or unconscious aspects of
personality which the ego doesn’t recognize. So the shadow is primarily negative because
people reject or don’t admit undesirable aspects of themselves. But the shadow can also hide
positive elements, especially in those with low self-esteem. Jung’s shadow contains everything
outside of consciousness, negative or positive.
"Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote. "The less it is embodied in the individual's conscious
life, the blacker and denser it is."
The shadow is likely to be projected outward, since it is irrational and instinctive. Thus people
project their personal inferiorities onto others in whom they then see moral deficiencies, e.g.,
rabidly anti-gay political or religious figures arrested for soliciting sex in airport men’s
restrooms or caught traveling on taxpayer-paid political junkets with rent boys.
Of unrecognized projections, Jung says, "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype)
then has a free hand and can realize its object – if it has one – or bring about some other situation
characteristic of its power."
Projections can handicap people by forming ever broader insulations of self-deceptive beliefs
between their egos and reality.
Tellingly, Jung notes that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness – or perhaps
because of this – the shadow is the seat of creativity." For some, then, "the dark side of his
being, his sinister shadow . . . represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar."
Jung also believed that most of the shadow evolves in an individual’s mind instead of being
transmitted through the collective unconscious. But other Jungians believe that the shadow may
also contain society's shadows, "fed by the neglected and repressed collective values."
In astrology, that may be specifically indicated by the Outer Planets' collective archetypes
playing roles in the shadow, especially if ruling or in the Fourth, Eighth or Twelfth house,
aspecting Saturn or the personal planets, or in the Sixth house with stressful aspects.
Saturn's position by sign, house and aspects is also often considered in astrology to be indicative
of one's shadow components.
Like consciousness, the shadow also contains layers according to Jung. At the top are meaningful
direct personal experiences that become unconscious through normal forgetfulness; changes of
attention from one focus to another; or repression. Below those layers are other archetypes that
comprise the inner containers for all experiences. The deepest layer of the shadow is what Jung
called the collective unconscious.
 A Man

Though it’s enlightening to study horoscopes of public figures from popes to dictators to movie
stars and serial killers, it’s always seemed something of a misleading if instructive exercise in
astrology.
People who attain remarkable success and renown are not 'average' nor are they typical clients
most astrologers are likely to encounter in their practices.
The difficulty for students of astrology is that intimate details of such exceptional lives can
rarely be known with certainty, since they’re only available through secondhand reports or,
worse, tabloid gossip.
Even the birth times of such public figures are unlikely to be accurate because they’re often
secondhand. Lois Rodden, whom I was privileged to know, did astrology a unique and
tremendous service by compiling birth data on famous figures, diligently researching the records
(or lack of them) and applying her Rodden Rating to the data. "DD" for Dirty Data is common
for famous figures more often than not. Rodden established the standard for evaluating and
labeling birth times of well-known people for astrological study, which continues today.
Still further, all such horoscopes of famous or infamous public figures, even if their data is
obtained from a legitimate birth certificate, beg the question: "Has the chart been rectified?
How? By whom?" Alas, that essential piece of information is almost universally absent.
So the accuracy of horoscopes of public figures, despite their appeal for astrologers and
students, is questionable though still educational. Much of interest may nevertheless be learned
from studying horoscopes of exceptional people and correlating them with events that are
trustworthy in their lives, with those noted caveats.
Another serious risk inherent with studying horoscopes of public figures? Even though serial
killer Ted Bundy has a birth time rated AA by Lois Rodden (quoted to her from a birth
certificate), how many serial killers will an astrologer have as a client? Further, how tempting is
it for inexperienced astrologers to fear that some of the same indications in Ted Bundy's chart, if
found in kindly old Uncle Ernie's horoscope, create undue suspicion?
When teaching workshops, I prefer working with charts of my own clients and the students
themselves, who are present to provide instant verification or contradiction. I know how much
due diligence I’ve done to obtain clients’ accurate birth data and have rectified their birth times
by the method shown in the "The Practice of Astrology" in this series.
I don’t use horoscopes of my clients who are public figures in these books because it might be
too easy to study their birthdates, connect them with known facts under discussion here, and
determine who they are, violating professional ethics. Unless otherwise noted, all horoscopes
used for examples in these books are clients of whom you’ve never heard. 'Real' people, not
necessarily exceptional.
The following horoscope additionally illustrates a not uncommon problem: clients who for
whatever reason are unable to obtain birth certificates or a time of birth beyond 'mother’s
memory' (notoriously unreliable, unfortunately).
All I ever had for this man was his Solar Chart (with the Sun on the Ascendant) and his Natural
Wheel (beginning with zero degrees Aries on the First house cusp, followed by equal houses
with the successive signs on their cusps). Again see "The Practice of Astrology" in this series
for how everybody has four charts to be consulted.
Are Solar Charts valid for a given individual even though they apply to everyone born that day?
You bet. It cannot be repeated enough: "Just because something is valid for many doesn't make it
less valid for one."
Let’s call this man "Ralph."
Since this is a Solar Chart, Ralph’s Moon degree cannot be known except to note that it has to be
in Scorpio. It might be four degrees earlier (this Solar Chart is for 8 a.m.) or eight degrees later,
since the Moon travels an average of one degree every two hours. But the Moon's degree shown
here cannot be used with any certainty of accuracy – always something of paramount importance
when reading charts: how accurate is it and how do you know? It's still possible to gain a great
deal of valuable information from such charts, and even to use their degrees in solar arcs or with
transits to birth placements: but not the degrees of an unrectified Moon, Ascendant or
Midheaven, since those move so rapidly.
What is the first thing that draws your attention in Ralph’s chart? (There is no 'correct' answer:
just decide for yourself what first draws and holds your attention.)

When I first erected Ralph’s horoscope many years ago, I passingly noted his Moon, whatever
its degree, was in the notorious 'via combusta' (the first 15 degrees of Scorpio; some astrologers
include the last 15 degrees of Libra) but my eye was immediately drawn to his Sixth house and
his Mars-Uranus conjunction along with Saturn there. Those are powerful, even dangerous
configurations of make-or-break psychological self-integration – or lack of it. The wide
opposition from his Sun to Saturn and the Sun’s inconjunct to Mars-Uranus makes his Sixth
house unavoidably essential to understanding the man.
The 'via combusta' may seldom be used in contemporary astrology, but like many older rules it
retains validity if only because any planetary archetype in Scorpio always carries with it
potentials for obsession-compulsion, death-and-rebirth extremes, power and control issues
(especially through 'love' and sex, which in Scorpio are often replays of early familial power
dynamics in the attempt to resolve them), and the highest and lowest expressions of a planet's
archetype including potential criminality.
Any planet in Scorpio demands careful scrutiny and deep sensitivity on the astrologer’s part
when discussing these areas with clients. In unaware and underprivileged individuals –
'unevolved,' psychologically 'unconscious,' or lacking access to education or psychotherapy –
some of Scorpio’s destructive potentials almost inevitably manifest (along with some of the
sign’s positive potentials) to greater or lesser extent, causing enough pain or tragedy that they
eventually force the individual to confront their deepest and most problematic aspects of
upbringing, belief systems and self – or die trying. The potential for rebirthing and transforming
the self through conscious understanding and psychotherapeutic work is nonetheless always
present, whether ever realized or not.
Ralph’s Moon is in its Fall in Scorpio and his Venus in its Detriment there, with all the potential
extremes of difficult and harsh emotional, mental and psychological significance of those
placements. Both relate to women and to Ralph's anima.
The question should arise again at this point: Will everybody born on this date have similar
issues? (This is a Solar Chart, without the particularization of a precise birth time to distinguish
it from other births that day.) The short answer is yes.
It upsets many people to accept that thousands or hundreds of thousands share common traits
according to their birth day. Yet it’s easy to accept that entire generations and social groups are
similarly characterized and even taglined: 'The Roaring Twenties,' 'Flappers,' 'The Greatest
Generation,' 'The Lost Generation,' 'Renaissance Men,' 'Dark Ages,' 'Beats,' 'Hippies,'
'Gangstas,' 'Goths,' 'The Me Generation,' 'Generation X,' and so on. Yet numbers of people
sharing more or less identical planetary positions in Solar Charts are somehow (incorrectly)
thought to invalidate astrology.
It doesn’t: again because what is valid for many is also valid for one. Nor does that unthinking
criticism of astrology account for the constant reminder that with horoscopes context is
everything. One cannot effectively delineate horoscopes while failing to consider factors like
race, economic class, education, national and local culture, religion and the like. Whether and
how a client adapts to those external realities, easily or with difficulty, absolutely shows in
horoscopes.
For instance, anybody born with Sun conjunct Jupiter and square Uranus will have difficulty
conforming the Self to imposed religious traditions into which they are born and raised. The
result may be a life of hypocrisy (outwardly conforming to 'scripture' and 'tradition' while
battling the Self’s truths) or rebellion (asserting the Self over 'scripture' and 'tradition'). The
more exact the Sun’s degree is aligned with the Jupiter-Uranus square, the stronger and more
obvious the personally experienced conflicts.
The idealistic and metaphysical truth that human beings are all unique collides in practice with
the realization that we also have far more in common with each other than we like to pretend, or
than we are taught by rival tribal 'traditions.'
Astrologers are also often made uncomfortable by acknowledging that a horoscope that indicates
potentials for criminal behavior and violence can also be the horoscope of a decorated police
officer or military leader, for instance. Criminals and law enforcement or military personnel are
often flip sides of the same coin, engaged daily with the same psychological aptitudes, strengths
and weaknesses – indicated by the same planetary archetypes. One nation’s terrorist is another
nation’s protector and defender of freedom. Astrology by itself, absent personal interaction with
the client, cannot judge whether a given person will take the low or high road, or perhaps travel
both. Cops can be crooked. Crooks can perform good works.
Ralph’s Solar Sixth house alone is cause for immediate concern, as it is for anybody born on this
date. This Solar horoscope predisposes all who are born with it, within the contexts of their own
localities and cultures, to experience more or less extreme difficulties of various kinds in their
family upbringing and dynamics, vis à vis their local society and culture, whether metropolitan
or remote, including potentials for physical and psychological abuse and emotional hardship,
humiliation and violence, serious accidents, injuries and illness, for instance.
Mars, a personal archetype considered 'malefic' by classical astrologers, is itself 'besieged' (in
traditional astrological parlance 'between malefics') between Saturn and Uranus – two
collective archetypes (Saturn is both personal and collective or generational).
All three planets in Ralph's Sixth house of psychological self-integration are considered
'malefic' in classic astrology, though contemporary astrologers avoid the term. All three are
retrograde (see "Planets in the Sixth House," below). As explained below, retrograde planets
represent energies in the psyche whose initial expression is inner-directed rather than outer-
directed.
Whether or not these archetypes are considered 'malefics,' their potentials for chronically
repeated episodes of explosive violence, psychologically and physically, remain. Their
significance represents an aggregate archetype of assault on the Self and on psychological self-
integration, to greater or lesser degree – particularly through the father-figure, with whom these
archetypes are associated in astrology.
Three such archetypes, in Gemini, correspond to multiple assaults against the self from within
and without, because as shown below they also correspond to external circumstances, events,
and people.
Mars personalizes the generational and collective archetypes of Saturn and Uranus in Gemini
(one 'sign of violence' since antiquity), because Mars is a personal planet. So does Ralph’s Sun
(another personal archetype) through its opposition to Saturn and inconjunct to Mars-Uranus
(collective archetypes).
But this isn’t about everybody born with this Solar Chart. It’s about Ralph. Though this is 'only' a
Solar Chart it’s all I had to work with; plus mentally considering his planets in the Natural
Wheel and also turning this Sixth house to appear on the first cusp, in the Psychological Self-
Integration chart as we examined above with Alice.
Far from confusing a practiced astrologer, these multiple charts add confirming details and
enriching interpretive layers to a timed birth horoscope.
Context is everything. Ralph contacted me seeking business advice. Understandably, given his
Capricorn Sun, Scorpio Moon and that loaded Sixth house (of work, occupation and health as
well as psychological self-integration).
Gemini on his Sixth cusp is ruled by Mercury in Capricorn, which inconjuncts his Sixth house
Saturn, ruling both Mercury and his Sun. Add his Mars-Uranus Sixth house conjunction and all
those become potential indications of serious – even life-threatening – issues involving mental
and physical health. (Earth signs and Saturn are especially predisposed to physicalize mental
and psychological conditions.)
Since I couldn’t rectify his chart using the Midheaven (he didn’t know his birth time) I relied on
the planets’ degrees, except the Moon's (see "Using Degrees" in this series), to explore
developmental markers in Ralph's past.
He was impressed when I asked if he’d served in the Air Force. Clients expect to see a little
magic from astrology: it validates the astrologer and helps the real in-depth applications of
astrology to be taken seriously later – because I already knew from Ralph's Sixth house that
everything else depended on his psychological self-integration of those extremely potent and
potentially violent significators. I was also concerned for his health. But those issues would
wait.
"You’re kidding! I entered the Air Force right after college! I was a second lieutenant. It paid for
my education."
The astrology of Air Force service as opposed to Army, Navy or Marines? In Ralph’s case, as
always, there are several, even many indicators in charts. The 'art of synthesis' comes from
experience. I like seeing things at least three or preferably four or more ways in horoscopes.
Ralph’s self-worth – his Solar Chart Second house – is Aquarius, an Air sign of technology and
independence. Among the armed forces, the Air Force is unique (even if one is ultimately not a
pilot but serves to support the missions) because Air Force combat is experienced inside
cockpits controlling a technological marvel (a plane) that costs millions to develop and build,
with the highly trained pilot alone and – this is key – untethered from the earth; a free and
independent warrior in a way no other military troops are. (Tank battalions operate on the
ground; ships and submarines on or beneath the seas.) Naval aircraft and planes used by the
Marine Corps show the same indicators in horoscopes.
Ralph’s Sixth house of military service has another Air sign – Gemini – on its cusp and contains
the militaristic, technological, warfaring planets Mars, Saturn (order and discipline) and Uranus
(technology, air, freedom, independent spirit) all in the Air sign of the Twins. That’s five Air
sign indicators related to military service in a one- or two-second’s glance. Hence, "Air Force."
His Twelfth house (institutionalization of self whether in hospital, prison or the military) has
freedom-loving yet dogmatic and militant Sagittarius on its cusp. Its ruler Jupiter is in self-
expressive self-fulfilling Leo at Ralph's Ninth cusp and square Uranus (high-tech machines,
flight), pointing to his Air Force service as something of a zenith of achievement and self-
fulfillment in his life. Squares indicate ambition as well as challenges and the Air Force offered
a constructive and approved outlet for Ralph's aggressive and combative Sixth house energies.
Equally important, his Jupiter sextiles Saturn of authority and tradition. So despite run-ins with
other officers, as he admitted, he recalled those days with great pride.
There are more such indicators in his chart, but those are sufficient.
Ralph wasn't a pilot but a procurement officer at Kelly Air Force base and entered university
graduate business school while serving there, getting his master’s degree in Business
Administration and later transferring to Portsmouth AFB as base procurement officer until
separating from the service a few years later to enter civilian life as a banker, ultimately
becoming a bank treasurer and managing an investment portfolio of more than $6 billion across a
five-state area. A terrific Capricorn-Scorpio profession.
His Jupiter in Leo at the Ninth cusp also indicates higher education in business, financial and
investment executive fields (Capricorn Sun, opposite Saturn, Jupiter trine his Sun and sextile
Saturn) as well as scholarships or aid (through the military in his case), and even teaching (Ninth
of higher education). Later in life he taught at universities and online.
But the heart of Ralph's horoscope is his Sixth house. In discussions with him over subsequent
consultations, despite his initial reluctance to delve into his difficult family background as
prompted by astrology, it developed that Ralph’s father was violently abusive, physically and
psychologically: a raging alcoholic ne’r-do-well (who himself had an abusive ne’r-do-well
father) who married a woman with family money (Ralph’s mother) and vented his frustration and
rage on her and his three sons. Ralph’s father had been repeatedly jailed for various offenses
and bailed out by friends.
Ralph himself married young (his high school sweetheart) and they had one daughter. He had no
other children. Ralph was also an alcoholic and heavy smoker who physically and emotionally
abused and terrified his wife until she ultimately left him, taking their daughter.
Ralph subsequently married a much younger woman – for six weeks. She refused to put up with
his controlling abuse, violent temper and abrupt disappearances, and also left him.
Ralph finally moved in with a third woman. They never married (she also contacted me, much
later, when Ralph became ill with multiple myeloma, and said, "I think the reason we’ve lasted
seventeen years is because we never married. Both of us knew that either one of us could leave
any time we felt like it. It worked for us.")
Ralph finally died, at age 70, after a nearly three year battle with multiple myeloma.
Long estranged from his brothers (Gemini of siblings), one of them ignored Ralph's funeral
entirely. The other, mentally ill and on disability, showed up with his 'care' dog on a leash.
Ralph let it be known that neither his first wife nor his only daughter were to be allowed to sit
with the family at his funeral. He had successfully fought ever paying a dime in child support or
alimony – out of sheer spite: he made good money for awhile but legally fought his ex-wife and
daughter every step of the way, continuing to abuse them emotionally and financially long after
he’d left them. At the time of his death, he was still fighting a legal judgment against him for five
figures he owed his first wife.
Ralph's history of alienating employers left him unable to find work any longer. He later
obtained a part time job teaching at a small local college and online. He offended friends and
made drunken passes at their teenaged daughters. Eventually, Ralph stopped drinking and found
refuge in conservative Christian religion. (Jupiter on his Ninth of religion, again, sextile Saturn
of tradition and authority.)
Ralph’s legacy? At his funeral, I was told by an attorney friend, more than one attendee
remarked of Ralph: "He was a jerk till the end."
But not, apparently, to his partner of his final seventeen years, who saw him through serious
heart trouble (two bypasses; Gemini again), lung disease (Gemini), joint, knee and limb
problems (Gemini) from old football injuries, and finally multiple myeloma (Gemini, among
other indicators).
Increasing ill health (Mars-Saturn-Uranus in Gemini in his Sixth house configured with his Sun)
defined the last twenty years of Ralph's life. Whether mental and psychological or physical, it’s
debatable which came first. More probably, like Gemini’s Twins, they’d accompanied each
other all of Ralph’s life.
I relate Ralph’s case to make two points. One is what is possible with a Solar Chart (and
Natural Wheel) alone, with no time of birth. The other is the importance of the Sixth house
regarding psychological self-integration (or disintegration) and what astrologers call 'work,
occupation and health.'
Despite Ralph’s accomplishments, his resume was checkered. He offended, rejected and
alienated co-workers and employers throughout his life; ordered colleagues about, beyond his
actual authority; failed to show up for work (alcoholism); lost job after job; worked
intermittently and erratically; until finally no one would hire him.
He became his abusive alcoholic father, whom he hated. Ralph hated himself. He dismissed all
efforts at psychological and emotional help, at self-understanding and self-integration – instead
acting out all the unconscious negative archetypes of his Sixth house. "Born to Be Bad?" Ralph
certainly thought so. From grade school on he played the hypermacho Bad Boy.
Ralph’s chart has much in common with his generation’s iconic Bad Boy horoscope, James Dean
(AA Rodden Rating), including Moon in Scorpio, Jupiter square Uranus, and an even more
powerfully stressful Sixth house ruler (also Mercury).
Ralph is a classic pattern of abuse perpetuating itself generation after generation. He refused
psychotherapy despite being quite intelligent. He never sought or achieved self-integration. He
consistently embodied the negative polarities of his Sixth house archetypes and dichotomies: the
duality of Gemini, the violence of Mars, the repression and depression and controlling
tendencies of Saturn, the separatism, isolation and unpredictable erratic crazy-making cruelty,
instability and impulsivity of Uranus. Ultimately he became totally dependent on his common-
law wife (whose own needs for a weak and needy husband Ralph perfectly fulfilled).
It is facile to say that Ralph's psychological makeup 'caused' his illnesses. Yet astrologers (and
medical doctors) repeatedly observe the synchronicity in patients with, say, heart disease
(Ralph's two bypasses) and emotional / psychological problems related to giving and receiving
love (owning and controlling loved ones through money or abuse, which is actually a reflection
of deep insecurity, not power or strength).
His choices, beginning in grade school with his natural athletic abilities relentlessly pushed by
his father (the lawyer friend who told me about Ralph's funeral related harrowing abuse and
humiliation Ralph received from his father in front of team members in locker rooms after
football games); his lifelong smoking and alcoholism; his spouse abuse and treatment of women
(including his daughter and the teenaged daughters of friends); his alienation of employers and
co-workers resulting in unemployability and financial dependency; the accumulation of 70 years
of extreme, unresolved, unacknowledged and largely self-imposed stress, toxic relationships and
toxic substances, despite his intelligence; finally killed him.
Fate shown by astrology at birth?
Really?
Or a self-determination to refuse to seek help and slowly destroy himself?
Astrology shows probabilities, not inevitabilities.
Ralph’s problems originated with his violent abuse by his father, and his father’s father, ad
infinitum. Yet many people are equally abused and turn out all right (nearly always through
seeking professional help).
Refusing help, Ralph ultimately rejected himself – emotionally, physically and biologically –
exactly as his father had. His shining hours were his few years as a high school football star and
Air Force officer. But his unconscious, unacknowledged motivation and goals had always been
anger and vengeance, starting from age 5-7, his Uranus and Mars degrees; a need to control,
dominate and lash out at those he loved (to avoid their feared rejection and hurt and 'prove' his
power), holding the threat of divorce or leaving them or cutting them off or beating them up as
his trump cards.
Rage? That's Pluto, not Mars. Ralph's Pluto squares his Moon-Venus archetypes of women and
his anima, starting with his mother, who was powerless to protect him.
As it happened, everybody finally left Ralph, except his common-law wife, thus proving Ralph
'right' all along (despite his actually having pushed them away).
In the end, he finally found a woman to love, protect and save him, holding onto her through the
only means remaining him (in his own mind): by losing everything and repeatedly courting death
with increasingly serious illnesses.
Uranus’ archetype of separation is what astrologers often see in divorces (Uranus aspects are
reliable indicators for divorce potentials) as well as in births (the newborn 'separates' from the
mother and vice versa, as creative types or inventors give birth to new projects and ideas).
Negatively, in the Sixth house, Uranus’ archetype can indicate a divorce from the Self that
permits all manner of destructive behaviors, including suicide (directly or indirectly). Unable to
consistently or reliably care for the Self, such people find it impossible to genuinely love others,
though initially they often appear quite charming, magnetic, even 'sexy.'
Uranus by solar arc, when Ralph died, was in his Eighth house (one of the houses related to
death) exactly square his birth Venus; an aspect of release through love that Uranus had never
formed before in his life and never would again.
Was Ralph really "a jerk till the end?"
Maybe. But still a man.
 Planets in the Sixth House

The deeper comparisons of astrology with Jungian analytical psychology become not so much
divergent as more intricate and shaded, particularly regarding Jungian Types and the realms of
the psyche astrology suggests lie beyond them.
Nor are astrological components directly analogous in every detail to Freud's concepts of Id,
Ego, Superego, Libido, et al., though certain rather obvious correlations exist.
The depiction of planetary archetypes in astrology (including, for archetypal symbology's sake,
the Sun and Moon, though astrologers are completely aware that those astronomical bodies are
not planets) is perhaps the most seemingly divergent of astrology's elements from traditional
psychoanalytical theories. Yet even here there is more in common with analytical psychology
than not.
The Sun in astrology is considered, rather obviously and too simplistically, as the 'Life Force.'
What does the term actually mean in practice?
The Sun's sign is shorthand for a seasonal relationship between Earth and the Sun. That is all it
is (but that's a lot). There is needless confusion and debate arising from precession of the
equinoxes (or 'general precession,' explained in full detail in "Planets, Signs, Houses: The
Difference"). Precession simply means that when we say somebody is born today with her Sun
in Aries, the Sun actually appears astronomically against the early degrees of the constellation
Pisces.
For those determined to view astrology as causative rather than synchronous, and for skeptics
and others with a superficial misunderstanding of astrology, precession either seems to demolish
astrology ("She's not really an Aries, she's a Pisces! Astrology is hooey!") or necessitates
adopting the convoluted interpretive gymnastics of sidereal rather than tropical astrology to
human lives.
Neither is correct nor necessary when it is understood that astrology is synchronous, not
causative; and astrology's signs are not the constellations, but have always been shorthand for
seasonal relationships between Earth and the Sun. If ancient astrologers believed the backdrop
of the zodiac caused phenomena, contemporary astrologers (for the most part) do not: they
accept synchronicity.
Spring is spring and winter is winter no matter the Sun's apparent constellational backdrop. The
annual solstices and equinoxes have always marked the same important seasonal points and
transitions on Earth honored by collective holidays and religious festivals, essential for planting,
harvesting, foretelling floods and droughts, etc.
The constellational background of the precession of the equinoxes does indeed provide
fascinating correlations with epochal collective archetypes like religions. Requiring 25,772
years to complete the circle, or an easy but inaccurate 'average' of 2,147 years per 'Age,' the
vernal equinox appearing against the constellation of Taurus corresponded to the Age of the
Bull, or the Golden Calf or Baal in the Bible. The Age of Aries was the Age of the Ram and the
rise of Judaism – which still blows the shofar or ram's horn during holy ceremonies. The Age of
Pisces inaugurated Christianity, whose symbol is the fishes, seen – with the other zodiacal signs
– in cathedrals' stained glass windows and on bumper stickers. The collective significance of
precession is culturally monumental and fascinating, but not part of this book.
Over millennia, astrologers have correlated and catalogued minute divisions of the heavens'
360º into sectors called decans (ten-degrees) and duads (two-and-a-half degrees), attributing
meanings even to those tiny seasonal variations in the Earth-Sun relationship.
None of these meanings is or can ever be true in the causative sense of physics, yet they are
evidently true in synchronicity with human lives described by experiential astrology.
The Sun's position in horoscopes describes the Earth-Sun relationship at an individual's moment
of birth, by sign and house. The house position of the Sun, Moon and planets is determined by
birth locality and Earth's rotational position at the birth moment.
It seems absurd and fantastic – or metaphysical and deeply meaningful – that Earth's orbital and
rotational position in relation to the solar system has any significance whatsoever in describing
an individual's psychology, belief systems, physical health, occupation, relationships and so on.
Yet astrological practice across several thousand years demonstrates far beyond mere random
chance that it does.
The Sun's archetype of the 'Life Force,' then, corresponds in various ways to psychological
concepts of conscious awareness, the Ego and the Superego – even the Id and facets of the
unconscious – and so on, depending on its position and aspects at birth.
Though many astrologers assign conscious awareness to the Sun and the unconscious to the
Moon, that isn't completely accurate and only begins to describe the picture of the psyche in
practice.
Let's dispense immediately with any attempt to consistently and specifically correlate all terms
in psychology's various branches with astrological archetypes. This is not a textbook and the
goal is a broader, rather than academic or pedantic examination of concepts.
Further, the discussions of planets in the Sixth house here are not intended to be cookbook
definitions but to prompt deeper consideration of these archetypes' roles in psychological self-
integration. People generally don't visit psychologists or astrologers when everything is
functioning optimally and perfectly in their lives. They seek insight and assistance when
confronted with problems and looking for solutions. The descriptions below necessarily focus
primarily on potential problems inherent in the placements.
Further still, it becomes essential to note the correlation between psychological self-integration
and work or vocation, in astrology and in life. So direct are the correspondences that one may
glean a remarkably accurate picture of anyone's psychology simply by asking what they do for a
living.
The answer to the party chit-chat question, "And what do you do?" reveals a tremendous amount
about an individual, especially when one is familiar with astrology's archetypes (planets, signs
and aspects) and their relationship to psychology. Even more is told by their response to, "How
do you like your job?"
Vocational guidance in psychology or astrology is a matter of identifying a person's optimal self-
integration of talents, personality, psychological Types, dominant function, inferior function,
shadow and so on . . . then assessing the various occupations and combinations of occupations
that fulfill those requirements, and finally constructing a plan for how to achieve those goals.
Astrology, because it affords the element of timing, is priceless for vocational guidance, in
skilled hands. Combined with an educated and trained psychologist, the two disciplines together
are unbeatable.
The Sun archetype has both conscious and unconscious dimensions, depending on its aspects.
Hard aspects to the Sun often correspond to inferior functions, repressions or projections
seeming to operate through The Other. A significant part of astrological (and psychological)
practice is to help clients consciously understand and reclaim their projections: to see
themselves and others more realistically. ("Why do I always choose partners who cheat on me?"
"Why can't I find a job I like?" "Why am I always struggling financially?")
The Sun in the Seventh house, for instance, can indicate a natural tendency to project elements of
the conscious and the unconscious outward onto others, and to almost wholly define the self
through other people's reactions and through things, for better or worse. That's a completely
different existence than the Sun in the First house, which may be so completely self-focused, for
better or worse, that it negatively becomes egomaniacal, utterly selfish, tyrannical and deluded –
or becomes a personification and exemplary expression of its Sun's noblest traits. Or, more
usually and depending on aspects, both.
Yet the Sun's archetype still fundamentally represents individual consciousness, awareness, life
force, vitality and the center which generates all else in a life. Without that star at the center of
our solar system, around which all other planetary archetypes orbit, life on Earth cannot exist.
As above, so below.
The Moon and planets may be considered solar ambassadors representing various sub-
archetypes of the Sun's and the psyche's primal life-giving, illuminating, motivating, goal-
directed energy.
Here astrology's planetary archetypes distinguish the psyche's various energies differently than
psychology. The Moon represents the psyche's archetype of emotional feeling, for instance.
Mercury, the psyche's archetype for thinking. Venus the archetype of valuing and balancing. Mars
the archetype for physicalizing. Saturn the archetype for ordering, structuring and conserving,
and so on.
Each planetary archetype represents a function of the psyche's energy expressing through various
externalized spheres of being and behaving (all symbolized by the houses) beginning with the
projection of our physical organs, limbs and bodies and extending outward into external
interactions, situations and events.
Astrology is essentially the study of the dynamic interactions of these pre-existing internal
archetypes as they express outwardly from and orbit our center, then. From those may be
extrapolated probable expressions and results which can be brought to conscious awareness,
analyzed, discussed, understood, supported or discouraged – recognized in ourselves and others
– but always honored and respected.
If the Sixth house is seen as the archetype of psychological self-integration, then planetary
energies symbolized by placements in the Sixth house emphasize those planets' significant
role(s) in achieving self-integration and all it implies.
Planets that appear to be in retrograde motion at birth are inherently introverted in terms of their
energy, if not in Jungian typology and functioning. By sign and house position, and aspects to
other planets, their retrograde archetypes will often be found to correspond to external situations
and people around the time of birth as well as throughout life, but their energy in the psyche is
genetic, innate and inward directed.
Even with an essentially outer-directed extraverted energy archetype like Mars, the retrograde
appearance at birth necessitates an initial inner-directed and subjective focus and filtering
before being outwardly expressed, according to the planet's house and sign position and aspects,
as well as affecting matters signified by the house(s) the retrograde planet rules.
The subtlety of the retrograde condition introduces another distinction between astrology and
analytical psychology: within even a dominant extraverted type or function, there will still exist
an initially introverted component to that energy's operation in the psyche.
Another condition which can exist in astrology that does not correlate exactly with analytical
psychology is called 'mutual reception.' It occurs when two planets are in each others' signs.
E.g., Venus in Scorpio and Mars in Libra. The closest psychology comes to recognizing the
phenomenon is 'compensation,' but it's not truly the same.
In mutual reception, each planet's archetypal energy may be read back in its own sign, retaining
its original degree. The planets' energies don't 'compensate' for each others' shortcomings, as
might types or functions in psychology: they simultaneously and continuously 'replace' each
other, consciously and unconsciously. Nor do they act like conjunctions in astrology, unless they
happen to occupy the same degree in their two respective signs at birth, in which case they act
jointly like two conjunctions in the two signs, interchangeably.
Mutual reception always indicates special flexibility, adaptability and a 'way out' of problems in
the psyche or the outer world, especially if made conscious through astrological analysis. They
permanently unite, in the psyche, the house matters they rule. Planets in mutual reception may be
part of the dominant type, inferior type, or shadow.
Two final conditions are also unique to astrology: the 'final dispositor' and mutual dispositors.
Sign rulerships establish the 'dispositor' (ruler) of the signs. The Moon in Aries is ruled by
(disposed of) by Mars. Rulerships or dispositors may be traced, chain-like, sometimes arriving
at a single planet (which by definition must be in its own sign, to dispose of or rule itself) that
ultimately rules (disposes of) all the others. It becomes the final dispositor in the chart and its
energy plays a dominant role in the psyche, wherever it falls in Jungian typology.
Mutual dispositors occur when one planetary group forms a ring of rulerships (none of which
need be in its own sign), while a separate group (one of which is in its own sign) forms another
ring.
My chart provides an example. Venus in Scorpio is ruled by Mars in Libra (they're in mutual
reception) and by Pluto in Leo (co-ruler of Scorpio). Venus in Scorpio rules the Sun, Mars,
Neptune and Midheaven in Libra (Venus' sign). Mars in Libra rules Moon in Aries (Mars' sign).
Moon in Aries rules Saturn in Cancer (Moon's sign). Saturn in Cancer rules the Capricorn
Ascendant. Those comprise one closed ring of archetypes.
Operating separately, unlinked to that ring: Mercury in Virgo rules Jupiter in Virgo and Uranus
in Gemini. But Mercury in Virgo is not a final dispositor. It has no connection to the other ring
by rulerships.
While those separate rings may function dissociatively, if neurotic, creating psychological
problems up to and including schizophrenia or multiple personality disorders, they normally do
not. They may still create problems in work and relationships, however, if individuals are
unaware of their existence and how they operate.
In my own case, I have always been consciously aware of a portion of my psyche that remains
objectively aware and analytical, no matter what is occurring externally, since adolescence. I
attribute it to my writer's mentality, in which a portion of the mind observes everything, no
matter how traumatic or emotionally exciting, from a detached perspective that thinks, "This will
make a great scene in my book or film!" That may not be usual, but is not in itself abnormal,
since not uncommon.
Later in life, at age 33 when I began working seriously with so-called higher consciousness (see
"Using Degrees"), I realized that area of consciousness was perfectly described by the
Mercury-Jupiter-Uranus ring. For me, it has not only been no problem, but the greatest inner
birthright I've discovered: my salvation, to give it just due.
If the differences between planetary archetypes of internal energies and the external
conditioning shown by sign archetypes on house cusps are kept in mind, what follows regarding
the Sun, Moon and planets in the Sixth house can also apply toward understanding external
conditioning toward the concepts of work, service and health shown by the sign on the Sixth
cusp. You won't confuse the two in interpretation if you keep those distinctions in mind.

Sun in the Sixth House

A person born with the Sun in the Sixth house has, as their primary life focus, consciously and
unconsciously, work and service. "What shall I do?" are the first words formed in their
enterprising little hearts even before they can speak.
If work and service are consciously at the top of their list, they will devote their whole identity,
'life force' and creativity (which encompasses but exceeds the arts) to their occupations and
careers; serving others and society through dedication to their natural talents, interests and
abilities.
If work and service are unconscious or undeveloped, they may 1) be seemingly 'handed'
successful career paths through fortuitous meetings with people who recognize and encourage
their natural gifts, or 2) be continually frustrated through life by hampering their own desire to
work and serve because of constant dissatisfactions (often disguised as a false mode of
perfectionism), self-criticism, or attempting to be servile and meet the expectations and demands
of others (another kind of 'service,' though often less fulfilling).
They may find genuine self-fulfillment and self-integration through dedication to 'service' roles
such as priests or nuns, servants, support staff and myriad behind-the-scenes or relatively
anonymous vocations and trades essential to societies. Or they may pursue more exalted avenues
of service which require still greater education, training and intellectual analytical abilities such
as medicine, teaching, scientific research, engineering, architecture, agriculture, military,
utilities services, firefighting, politics and the like.
Their secondary focus will be health (mental and physical) – of themselves and other people, or
animals or things (machines, administrations, corporate or military divisions, etc.). Whether
mechanics or surgeons, veterinarians or massage therapists, beauticians or pharmacists, teachers
or administrators, the common archetypes of fixing, repairing, healing, improving and servicing
are consistent. Astrology affords great refinement of detail and focus – vocational guidance –
through analyzing factors like higher education, or lack of it, along what lines, timing, etc.
It's also been observed that those with this position seem prone to meet prominent leaders,
important figures or celebrities who play a significant role in developing or shaping the career.
Hard aspects to the Sun here will present developmental challenges that may actively or subtly
thwart and / or further vocational refinement, fulfillment and 'healthiness.' A common
manifestation of hard aspects to this Sun lies through parental or societal disapproval of natural
vocational leanings, for instance. Some individuals respond with greater determination and
resolve to succeed along desired lines at any cost: others 'sacrifice' their true selves to please
others. The latter is still 'service to others,' but of a particularly self-denying sort that often
produces resentment, vocational and financial frustration, and even illness.
Depending on the Sun's Sixth house position by sign and aspects with other planetary archetypes,
more specific information can be gained regarding how and in what areas of life a person's Sun
energy most naturally expresses as 'work and service'; whether that expression is easy or
difficult, positive or negative; creative or destructive; healthy, neurotic or dis-eased.
There are, for instance, people whose lives primarily focus on living with health issues either
from disabilities at birth, later conditions of illness, or accidental disability. There is nothing
'wrong' with such lives. Stephen Hawking is one astonishing example. Yet it's a not uncommon
misunderstanding among naïve metaphysicians that anyone 'truly' living 'in harmony with the
universe' ought to be 'perfect,' when nothing is further from the truth.
In the deepest sense, Stephen Hawking is living in perfect harmony with his universe. His time
of birth has been rectified from an approximate time and receives a Rodden Rating of C so his
horoscope can be no more than an interesting anecdotal example – but it places his Sun in his
Twelfth house (of confinement through illness, among other things), opposite his Sixth. Both
houses share many of the same 'health and disease' archetypes; the Twelfth being especially
associated with restrictions from disease and with hospitals.
Hawking's Sun in Capricorn, like the Sun in any Earth sign, tends to physicalize everything, not
just in the body: he is one of history's preeminent theoretical physicists. And the Twelfth is a
thoroughly collective house, unlike the Sixth; so the potentials for research and authority that
characterize Hawking's remarkable existence have a profound and lasting collective influence.
Mature metaphysicians understand there are perfectly valid reasons for choosing a lifetime and
physical body that inherently limits them in some way. The challenge is to explore and exploit
avenues that are available, as Hawking does, or succumb to the limitations.
Living 'in harmony with the universe' does not imply ease or human perfection. Perhaps nobody
potentially understands that better than those with their Sun in the Sixth (or Twelfth) house. "We
all have our cross to bear," goes the saying. Sometimes, in astrology, that is literally depicted in
the aspect called the Grand Cross (two pairs of planets in opposition, all four square each
other). Though it may seem harsh to accept that not every single human being is 'meant' to be
equally healthy, wealthy and wise, that is reality. Stephen Hawking not only gives the world his
intellectual and scientific brilliance, he's also a living embodiment for everybody of the
possibility of the inner self triumphing over physical conditions. It doesn't get more metaphysical
than that.
Those born with their Sun in the Sixth are often centered directly in these archetypes of health
and dis-ease – of people, situations and things. Will they strive to fix them? Whine about them?
Blame them? Use them? Fate is always available as a passably good excuse. Free Will is also
always available as an even better reason for living one's allotted time on Earth.
There are people who are born with genetic conditions that affect their health, thus making it a
life focus. Others make behavioral choices that affect their health, with the same result. And
there are those who are indeed born with relatively 'perfect' health and whose behavioral
choices help them maintain it or even make careers of it.
These various conditions of the Sun's archetypal energies are particularized by the sign on the
Sixth cusp, which represents not an inherent energy type (like the Sun's sign) but external
scripted conditioning that affects belief-systems about work, service and health. The sign the
Sun is in represents its energies' genetic scripting, which may be the same as the conditioned
scripting shown by the sign on the Sixth cusp, or different.
Leo is the natural sign of the Sun, for instance. Leo on the Sixth cusp will indicate strong
external conditioning (often through the father figure) toward identifying with the archetypes of
work, service and health – either positively or negatively (or both). The person will be
conditioned to be something of a leader, a strong personality, a person of accomplishment who
earns respect through their work – unless other planetary aspects conflict. This will be so even if
the father archetype is a ne'r-do-well: "Don't be like me – be a somebody." Yet negative
conditioning (whether through the father figure or otherwise) may still undermine the "be
somebody" admonition with self-destructive modeling (hard aspects). "He's such a great guy.
But he just can't seem to catch a break."
The Sun archetype in such a chart may reflect the father's alcoholism (through, say, a hard aspect
to Neptune), along with elements of alcoholism that accompany the condition: e.g., self-deceit,
deceit of others, denial, inferiority complexes, inhibition, confused ego, pretension and self-
destruction. Whether the person themselves embodies and acts out those traits or projects them
onto others depends on other astrological factors as well as matters outside the horoscope. But
in either case, they are present and command attention.
With Leo on the Sixth cusp, the person's Sun may be in Virgo, for instance. All the external
Leonine exhortations for them to be accomplished leaders and earn respect through their work
may be simultaneously undermined by an impossible-to-please parental figure and their
internalized dynamics of a subtly or overtly belittling parental situation. ("Do as I say, not as I
do. But not really.") or constant destructive comparisons to a sibling or friends ("Why can't you
be more like your brother, Barack Obama?")
The potential harmony or conflict between the sign on the Sixth cusp and a planet or planets in
the sixth house, in this simplistic example of conditioning, is neither extreme nor uncommon. It
illustrates the tragic and typical phenomenon of people trying to escape dysfunctionality,
addiction or poverty who get some sort of education, some kind or rehabilitation, begin making
something of themselves, then fall back into their old ways. Their parents' situations worsen,
say, and the parents 'need' their would-be successful offspring to come back home to 'help.' Or
their former loser friends have 'emergencies' that require their sacrifice. Or their lovers or
spouses likewise suffer some situation that demands their time and money and serves to pull
them back and prevent them overcoming their roots and pasts.
Pathological situations and those caught up in them cannot withstand the presence of healthy
people, and vice versa. One of two results eventuates: the pathological person or people get
well, or the healthy person or people get sick. A third course is possible, though more difficult
and requiring greater maturity: the healthy person maintains a constructive distance while still
extending compassion and support to the sick and needy.
The phrase often heard from others by Sun-in-Sixth-house types trying to escape dysfunctional
families and environments is, "You're so selfish." It can be highly effective, unfortunately.
By now it should be clear that the Sixth house in horoscopes is not just the archetype of
psychological self-integration but also of physiological self-integration. All crucial elements of
living come together in this house, integratively or disintegratively: psychology and physiology,
mind and body, through work and health.
To the extent one is not self-integrated, one cannot integrate collectively.
"To thine own self be true." The only path to truth is fully conscious self-awareness, symbolized
here by the light of the Sun.

Moon in the Sixth House

"It's always best to start at the beginning," Good Witch Glinda sagely advised Dorothy.
To understand the kind of energy symbolized by the Moon's archetype, consider what the real
Moon is and does. It reflects the Sun's light; which, on the Moon's face, appears to wax, wane
and disappear cyclically every month.
The Moon in astrology has always represented emotions, among other things. It is associated
with the Feeling Type, like the Watery signs. The Moon affects the oceans' tides, another watery
archetype for the fluidity of feeling currents.
Feelings and emotions don't spring from nowhere on their own: like the Sun's light on the Moon,
feelings are reflections, reactions and responses to sensory stimuli – sights, sounds, tastes,
smells, skin conductance (galvanic responses to wind, temperature, humidity, emotions and so
on) and biochemistry.
Feelings and emotions are reflective and reactive exactly as the Moon reflects more or less
sunlight during its 28½ day cycle. Once aroused, feelings and emotions also initiate actions and
responses through glandular and nervous system responses to emotions, producing actions.
Testosterone, estrogen, adrenaline and other hormonal balances are examples. Actions, in turn,
produce more emotional reactions, which feed more responses and actions, and so on.
The Moon's archetype in horoscopes symbolizes one's natural inherent Feeling energies and
emotional responses. Its sign archetype is its genetic scripting: rapid, slow, extraverted,
introverted, hot, cold, fight or flight, etc. Its house position and the sign on the Moon's house
cusp show one's external emotional conditioning (scripting) and the matters of life where
emotional sensitivities appear most direct and dominant. Matters ruled by the house with Cancer
on its cusp are equally or secondarily dominated by the Moon's Feeling archetype.
The Moon is said to represent unconscious habits, emotional and thought responses and patterns.
Whatever habits the Moon acquires tend to remain lifelong and difficult to break without
conscious and determined effort. With the Moon in the Sixth, habits and tactics (bad or good) of
psychological self-integration can significantly support or weaken every area of life.
For many astrologers, the Moon is a more accurate barometer for how a person 'is' on a day to
day basis than their Sun sign, especially women, who more consciously identify with their lunar
archetype physiologically (the menstrual cycle, for instance) and psychologically.
For men, identification with their lunar archetype may be less conscious yet equally strong and
present on a day-to-day basis.
It is not that the Moon's archetypal qualities are necessarily more feminine: many of its traits
like nurturing and providing security are equally essential for parents of both genders, as are
feeling responses in general.
Rather, societies have collectively deemed the lunar qualities to be more 'appropriate' for
women than for men, accelerated particularly with the patriarchal traditions over the past 2,000
years of the three Abrahamic religions and their denigration of the feminine (whose rich ancient
and powerful Goddess archetypal imagery and meanings have been completely reduced in
Christianity, for instance, to a desexed, neutered, non-threatening and effectively powerless
Virgin Mother of an all-powerful male God – "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" –
to be feared and obeyed, whose 'word' is spoken only through male authorities).
All lunar qualities in such societies and systems, including feelings, are supposed to "know their
place" – usually defined as subservient. If the Moon is given short shrift in astrology relative to
other archetypes, it may be due to widespread and longstanding collective dismissal of its so-
called 'feminine' qualities. Astrologers neglect the Moon's archetype at their own peril.
Astrologers have long noted the importance of harmonious Moon signs between people who live
or work together daily, as marriage or business partners: more so, in many ways, than their Sun
or other positions.
The Moon by sign and house position shows what functions, situations and habitual expressions
an individual is most comfortable with and naturally gravitates toward for feelings of security
and protection, nourishment, restoration and nurturing.
That can seem paradoxical when the Moon occupies a sign like Sagittarius – a mental or
physical warrior or Amazon archetype that has nothing to do with usual concepts of comfort or
harmony or security and everything to do with noble battles, travels and adventures of the mind
and body.
Perversely to others, yet quite naturally to Moon in Sagittarius, security, comfort, nurturing,
replenishment and nourishment are found through arguments and conflicts (often over some ideal
or cause, petty or significant) rather than through peace-seeking, equilibrium or tranquility
(which to quest-seeking Sagittarian types are threatening) – or even basic security (gambling or
other forms of risk-taking). The type may be more devoted to its particular cause or dream than
to a steady paycheck, and their bristling impatience can reflect their commitment to tomorrow
rather than the task at hand.
Such types are well-advised to seek idealistic, even activist careers and cause-oriented
missions that take full advantage of their natural Noble Warrior selves (and to learn a bit more
forbearance with their less motivated colleagues).
Contrast the Moon-in-Sagittarius mode of comfortable, natural, habitual 'warrior-like' emotional
expression with the Moon in Taurus, which instead often seeks peace and comfort at almost any
price, despite its notorious fixity and stubbornness. Change as a concept, to Taurus' naturally
conservative, tradition-loving lunar archetype, is threatening. The Moon is held to be 'exalted' in
Venus-ruled Taurus, however, so it may be that the quality of suppressing quick-trigger
emotional volatility is best suited for attaining the domestic stability and lastingness most
optimal for marital (and material) comforts and child rearing. Besides, Moon in Taurus is often
much more comfortable with the physical side of sex than Moon in Sagittarius, which can be
passionate in the moment but also neurotic and skittish about the whole subject, full of
idiosyncratic dos-and-don'ts.
With the Moon in the Sixth house, the same centering on self-integration through work and
service is found as with the Sun, but without the Sun's direct conscious sense of mission, and on
a more simply taken-for-granted, mood-motivated, unthinking basis.
Whereas the Sun in the Sixth, as we saw above, may by choice or necessity consciously
dedicate its life force and life's work to careers in health, service, science, education and so on,
the Moon unconsciously gravitates toward such archetypes with far less planning or effort and
less focus or definition of purpose, all else being equal. A common result seen with the Moon in
the Sixth (especially with hard aspects) is a checkered resume and fluctuating job history.
The Moon in the Sixth house often represents a psychological self-integration that is naturally
maternal, in male and female horoscopes, and makes an effective if sometimes clinging and
demanding parent. It can even unconsciously treat other adults as children, doling out unasked
for advice; correcting colleagues' grammar or dress or eating habits "because I love you"; and
otherwise becoming everybody's back seat driver.
The Sixth house Moon often psychologically self-integrates by becoming multi-talented and a
multi-tasker – much like a mother or jack-of-all trades. It can whip up a wonderful meal from
whatever's handy, sew a button on a shirt, patch torn upholstery, build a bookshelf, jump-start a
car, wait on you hand and foot when you're sick, help you prepare for tests, proofread and edit
your novel, doctor Fido's infected ear, run errands for you, serve meals to the homeless and a
thousand-and-one other odd jobs. And it can do them all well!
That is, when it's in the mood and not overbooked: in which case it can suddenly turn sullen,
distant, cold or unavailable. The enthusiasms of last month may be dropped for new ones the
next. Parent of the Year can morph into Brat of the Day without warning.
A Sixth house Moon functions as accurately as a weather barometer on the desk. It's acutely
sensitive to emotional undercurrents around it before they're evident to anybody else. Thus it
may appear 'psychic.' Or merely meddlesome. "Is something wrong? Let me fix you some
chicken soup." But in truth, this type always means well and genuinely wants to nurture.
That's one reason this position often shines in occupations dealing with the public or catering to
public needs and tastes and in 'service' vocations meeting society's many essential mundane
needs. They may excel in business, real estate, banking or food-supply because their
psychological self-integration is always, at heart, about personal comfort and security of
themselves and others. These are the women who turn Mamaw's kitchen moisturizer recipe into
a multi-million dollar skin-care goliath on QVC. Or the men whose basement tinkering invents
the next Weed-Whacker or first zillion-dollar smartphone app.
More likely, though, Moon in the Sixth is content to settle into a job with benefits and a steady
paycheck – or restlessly try various gigs as their enthusiasms wax and wane. If they rise through
the ranks to managers or executives, terrific. But they're not necessarily driven. Because drive
means taking risks. And this position is fundamentally risk-averse unless its sign says otherwise
(in which case risk-taking paradoxically becomes its real security). Even when risk-averse,
however, its own immaturity and neuroses can often create a series of ongoing minor or not-so-
minor crises and setbacks that force it to take chances it would otherwise prefer not to.
Psychological self-integration, unless the Moon is in an analytical or critical sign like Virgo or
Sagittarius, is achieved through feelings: deep, instinctive emotional responses to people,
situations and things. But it's still an essentially reactive and variable self-integration that
depends on external stimuli and other people's actions and reactions rather than inherent mental
introspection.
It may seem ironic that this position can become an excellent psychologist. But it is often true
that individuals emphasize and exaggerate portions of their inferior or shadow function to
compensate for them. Moon in Sixth types react viscerally to others' needs, picking up tiny clues
(body language, vocal timbre), instantly summarizing and assessing them according to how they
make them feel . . . then applying their overlay of intellectual discipline, education and training.
Analysis after the fact: the fact always being their initial emotional response.
That's one reason these types often unconsciously surround themselves with those who are in
some way sick or needy. They can help such types, which is their natural emotional calling.
People who are strong and self-sufficient, who aren't sick or needy, don't appear to need these
types, so they can feel useless, helpless or unwanted.
For Moon in the Sixth, the world and everyone in it produces an either-or response: comfort or
discomfort, pleasure or pain, validation or threat. Sixth house Moons essentially seek families
among co-workers and friends. You're either part of their family or an outsider. Creatures of
habit, they balk at surprises, questioning, criticism or anyone or anything that tests their habits,
routines and ruts – even or perhaps especially when their habits and ruts are shown to be
damaging or destructive. Fifty pounds overweight? They'll have a second helping of cobbler,
thank you, while you explain why they should join Curves. Alcoholic? Just one more for the road
while you offer to sponsor them in AA.
Undeveloped and unconscious Moon in Sixth types are prone to neuroses, phobias, obsessions
and compulsions, since rituals can become their go-to means for achieving temporary relief from
externally provoked stress. Such rituals reinforce private comfort through control. Bipolarity
and similar disorders may also be present, depending on aspects from other planets to the Moon.
Their early family and parental situation, for instance, may have made it impossible to please
one parent without apparently betraying the other. One natural reaction for these types is to
construct two inner families, at war with each other, cohabiting in their psyches. Each provides
emotional security of a kind, unhealthy though both may be. Nor does this type of background
diminish the biochemical realities of bipolar disorder that may be present and its effective
medical treatment.
Other health conditions, real or imagined, may preoccupy or plague Moon in Sixth types on and
off. The hypochondria that can be noticed with this position (and certain planetary aspects to it)
may originate in childhood with some relatively serious illness or injury – physical or
psychological or both – which, though long since overcome, is as deeply present and
unconsciously threatening as if it were yesterday.
It is not uncommon for these types to structure and define regimented occupational and domestic
environments and to erect boundaries around themselves to achieve an almost ritualistic
sameness and daily routine, though their clients or the public with which they usually deal may
vary greatly.
Domestically, they may choose to live either quite privately, outside of towns, isolated, difficult
to reach without calling ahead, or in gated communities behind security codes. They generally
make it clear that they don't appreciate others casually dropping by unexpectedly or overstaying
their welcome, though they love to schedule and arrange to entertain and serve their circle of
friends.
This can be one of the most vulnerable positions in all astrology. Their childhoods and parental
conditioning, perhaps especially their mother figure, whether seemingly materially comfortable
and loving or not, often set them up for lifelong dissatisfaction, body-image or mental health
issues. They can be their own harshest judges, though generally projecting that shadow onto
others in whom they belligerently resent the slightest doubt, criticism or competition. Inwardly
acutely sensitive and sometimes raw, and despite seeming to have numerous friends and
acquaintances, they develop hard exteriors for self-protection and unconsciously create walls to
prevent all but their very few trusted fellow human beings from getting truly close.
There is also a tendency to continually replay the childhood dynamics with their parents in their
adult relationships, through unconscious attempts to finally, someday, hopefully, make everything
turn out right. That's another reason they can make such effective psychologists and care givers:
they're secure and comfortable adopting those parental roles, though not necessarily in
spontaneous adult-adult relationships with equals. It's remarkable, as already noted, how
typically they surround themselves with friends and loved ones who are weak, suffering, needy
or immature. People who are strong, healthy and adult don't appear to need them and it bears
repeating: these types need to be needed, generally, to feel secure.
If you want to really reach this type, simply ask for their help or advice. It doesn't matter so
much whether you accept or use it as that you asked. They'll bask in the glow for days. If you
remember to thank them again and often, they'll have your back for life.
Though Moon in Sixth individuals do everything they can to achieve and maintain external
structures of protection, security, integration and acceptance into society and the collective, their
internal psychological self-integration is inherently unstable yet cyclical: exactly like the
waxing and waning of the Moon. They didn't mean to hurt or insult you and it grieves them to
know they did. They have long and often unforgiving memories, for their own foibles as well as
yours. So they often carry a deep sense of shame, realistically or not, which they bury and
pretend to ignore.
They not only can become wonderful therapists, they can also benefit from therapy more than
many, if they will seek it.
If they learn to consciously understand and accept their foundational feeling cycles as normal
and reliable, and to honor and love all their phases, dark and light, they ultimately appreciate
their changeable lunar seasons as much as they love nature's annual solar seasons, with their
attendant holidays, rituals and collective sentiments.
Then they can treat their own lives with the same tender care they often devote to their beloved
gardens (a usual avocation or hobby for these types) or pets (another common love). They don't
judge, criticize or fear their plants or pets; they protect them from storms and extremes of
weather but otherwise nurture them to grow and be themselves, in return for which this type is
rewarded with their beauty, loyalty and unstinting nourishment of their soul.
When they die, those plants and pets, Moon in Sixth types mourn appropriately but soon
replenish their gardens and critters with new ones (rescue animals are a favorite), and begin
again at the beginning, where it's always best to start.
How difficult can it be, after all?
The Moon – just a big round rock – goes through all these phases every month.
And never turns its back on anybody.

Mercury in the Sixth House

M ercury here offers tremendous natural potentials for healthy psychological self-integration if
its essential duality – even multiplicity – is recognized and honored. Even with difficult aspects
from other planets, Mercury's energy in the psyche analyzes, compares, contrasts, connects,
discriminates, intellectualizes, labels, makes sense of, thinks, and finally integrates.
Or tries to.
Mercury's archetype is at home in Airy Gemini and Earthy Virgo but may be consumed or
drowned in Fire and Water placements. It is about Thinking and Sensing, not Intuition or Feeling.
Its energies comfortably integrate mind-body constructs, but intuitive and emotional realities are
inherently foreign to it. Mercury's function is essentially out of place in Fire and Water signs,
then, which makes for fascinating and revealing study.
That point highlights another distinction between astrology and analytical psychology. Analytical
psychology can identify one's predominate Type, inferior function, and shadow, for instance. But
astrology suggests that each planetary archetype itself may exhibit a similar hierarchy of
dominant, inferior and shadow components according to sign placement, house and aspects from
other planetary archetypes.
Astrology's archetypes may go much further, then, in greater detail and specificity, than
analytical psychology in examining aspects of the psyche and their expression in particular areas
of living (house placements).
Mercury revels in learning and connecting ideas with tangible facts to produce pragmatic
measurable results that appeal to the thoughts and senses. Mercury's archetype rules all internal
as well as external 'communication.' It rules the processes in the brain's neurons and synapses,
the nerves and connective tissues throughout the body; the organs of speech, hearing, sight and
breathing; and the limbs that provide connection, mobility and grip.
In the Sixth house, Mercury's approach to psychological self-integration is through concepts and
ideas it can read about, intellectualize, write about, talk about, compare, contrast, juxtapose,
discuss, study in classes and groups, share with an audience . . . and through tangible applied
intellectual subjects like biology, mathematics, physics, engineering, medicine, surgery,
technology, nutrition, chemistry . . . or sculpture, painting, jewelry making, writing, performing,
photography, dance, gymnastics, athletics . . . in short, anything that explores and exploits mind-
body (and especially the hands) or mind-matter connections and significance.
There are different learning types, for instance: auditory, visual and kinetic; random or rote.
Mercury's sign position suggests its natural learning type. Aspects to it help identify its natural
preference for random or rote learning. Those preferences also dominate its psychological self-
integration – reflecting its affinity for random, rote, auditory, kinetic or visual 'putting it all
together' and synthesis.
Mercury in Taurus, for example, may prefer teachers (and psychological self-integration) whose
methods are primarily auditory (lecturing) and rote (ordered, methodical and structured).
Mercury in Aries, by contrast, whether in educational settings or its psychological self-
integration, quickly bores with methodical order and responds best to instructors (and
psychologies) that are kinetic, dramatic and random, and engage the Aries Mercury's need for
constant stimulation, action, variety, challenge, conflict and the unexpected.
But always with Mercury's archetype is its fundamental duality (or multiplicity) and awareness
of opposites, contrasts, juxtapositions, either-or, both-and, light and dark, high and low, and
especially 'on the other hand' (unless in a Fixed sign).
Its duality characterizes Mercury's innate detachment that can range from delightful to humorous
to infuriating to pathological. Its detachment is one reason Mercury in the Sixth can produce fine
writers and speakers, commentators, analysts, physicians, technicians, problem-solvers and
politicians. Even in the midst of emotional trauma and drama (which Mercury here often
unconsciously attracts or creates if others don't supply its required frequency), a part of Mercury
remains aloof, objective, ironic and observant. "This will make a great scene in my book!"
Mercury in the Sixth may or may not get around to actually writing that book, however, because
of this position's native superficiality and yearning for variety (unless in a sign or aspect that
deepens its orientation). It bores easily and gets distracted unless in an obsessed or fixated sign
like Taurus or Scorpio, for instance, in which case the world can end and Mercury will never
know it, so focused is it on the chosen task of the moment.
Mercury's archetype is the natural chameleon, adopting the superficial coloration of whatever
sign it's in and whatever people it's around. Mercury in the Sixth can develop into a facile actor
and mimic, which it often is even with no formal training, starting in the crib. It can converse
easily with just about anybody on just about any topic. If it doesn't know much about what's
being discussed, it delightedly feigns familiarity with the subject to stay in the game or – if it
truly has no clue – makes an astute joke and changes the subject. So glib and convincing is it that
others are later astounded upon reflection to realize it was all meant to charm and entertain, full
of obvious contradictions, non-sequiturs and breezy nonsense.
One of the real problems with an undeveloped Mercury in the Sixth is its reluctance to take
anything too seriously, particularly in intuitive Fiery signs, or too deeply if in Watery realms of
emotions. An unconscious Fire sign Mercury is too self-involved to stray very far from its
favorite pronoun, "I." An unconscious Water sign Mercury is too sensitive, vulnerable and self-
protective to follow any conversational topic too deeply. A developed Fire sign Mercury in the
Sixth is fascinating, often brilliant and entertaining (if still self-involved), but also generous and
interested – especially in others who are equally fascinating, brilliant and self-involved. A
developed Water sign Mercury in the Sixth tends to favor intimate one-to-one conversations over
entertaining the troops. It's like a psychological sponge (and may in fact be a psychologist),
always soaking up others' emotional states and unconsciously weighing whether they're being
real or trying to put one over.
When weak or unconscious, Mercury in the Sixth may substitute superficial manipulation and
misdirection for genuine depth and consistent effort. It can be fad oriented: joining the latest self-
help gurus or diet and exercise programs only to abandon them when they fail to produce
immediate results or otherwise become routine and boring. It can merely parrot others' ideas,
dogmas and philosophies without thinking them through or experiencing them deeply.
That tendency toward shallowness can also apply to psychological self-integration for those
with Mercury in the Sixth. They may say they want to change, grow and improve. But follow up
in a year or ten. Are they still making that same promise or have they actually changed, grown
and improved? Mercury here is easily sidetracked and always preoccupied.
Discipline, consistency and application become essentials for accomplishing anything of lasting
substance in their lives. The key to discipline, for anybody, is to follow your bliss. By
identifying talents, leanings and pursuits that evoke the most pleasurable responses, then seeking
to educate, train, develop and capitalize on them . . . discipline and application for these types
take care of themselves with little effort.
When consciously developed, Mercury in the Sixth can become highly educated and trained,
make excellent writers, teachers and presenters, and develop scientific or technical proficiency.
Yet they may sometimes reflect more theoretical than emotional depth and power. These are the
artists, musicians and vocalists who demonstrate extraordinary dexterity and technical skill with
their hands, instruments or vocal cords yet who strangely lack that indefinable 'soul.' They may
impress but not 'move' audiences as effectively as some less technically skilled but emotionally
transcendent colleagues.
The same may be true in these people's personal relationships. Though fun, intelligent,
conversational, sociable, charming and stimulating, there can be a sense of superficiality,
insincerity, preoccupation, coolness, sarcasm or even occasional cruelty (unintentional or
otherwise). More emotional or intuitive types can perceive these Mercury in Sixth people as
skilled game-players or pedants, lacking real sensitivity or compassion.
No wonder these types often incorporate some element of distance when choosing vocations.
Travel, change and variety may be required for their careers, for instance. It's not uncommon for
less developed types to try one job, then another; becoming Jacks or Jills of all trades and
masters of none, never really committing and always keeping an opportunistic eye out for
something better.
Mercury's archetype as The Trickster is a double-edged sword, psychologically. Able to see
both or all sides to every issue and situation, dedication may not come easily or naturally – even
to their own goals and affections. Mercury here often learns early on to manipulate and play both
ends against the middle through interactions with parents and siblings. This Mercury position
can learn to fib, fudge and lie almost by second nature. Manipulative tactics can easily extend to
gossip and backbiting, which may start as superficial fun and games but turn destructive and
deadly, costing this Mercury position jobs, loss of trust and reputation, and relationships.
Those are often the reasons such types move on when their backlog of deceptions (whether
intended to harm, compete or merely to entertain) become insurmountably obvious to too many
others. They may ultimately burn too many bridges and be forced to relocate and start anew.
Mercury in the Sixth can represent the puella aeterna or puer aeternus – the eternal youth. It's
common for these types to both look and seem young no matter their chronological years.
Accompanying traits may include an inordinate desire for freedom and independence; refusing to
accept real responsibilities; blaming others for their own shortcomings and mistakes; avoidance
of situations from which they see no escape; living a kind of 'maybe' life – a provisional life
with one eye ever focused on the possibility that the grass is greener somewhere other than here
and now. Its shadow is the Wise Old Man or Woman.
This Trickster archetype likes to 'fool' people – and itself: an essentially immature evolution of
its natural facility for manipulation and escaping grownup obligations. With hard aspects from
other planetary archetypes, those traits can develop into actual criminality of various kinds –
accompanied by a growing addiction to the adrenaline rush of getting by with it. When applied to
their own psychological self-integration, the results can be increasingly devastating with age.
The process of fooling themselves about themselves involves compartmentalizing, slamming shut
certain doors, flinging open others, keeping their stories straight, until their psyches resemble
French farce or – much worse – mental illness to one degree or another.
These possibilities with this Mercury position may indicate a psychological lack of affect
(emotions, empathy), which demands more detailed scrutiny of the horoscope to assess the
individual's capacity for integrating the affective, cognitive (intelligence) and conative (acting
on thoughts and feelings) parts of their minds.
Mercury's energy in the psyche is non-emotional and completely rational. But rationality may be
carried to extremes of detachment from emotional affect so that it appears virtually identical
with irrationality (though on deeper analysis it makes perfect sense, given their internal logic
from a perhaps faulty premise). Examples abound in 'senseless' killings that make perfect sense,
once the facts and cold, unfeeling logic are understood. Or senseless divorces and otherwise
seemingly irrational and even sociopathic or pathological behaviors. Or fanatics. Such
behaviors are labeled 'irrational' even when they are icily, inhumanly, destructively and utterly
rational.
Easier to label Hitlers and Stalins 'irrational' than to acknowledge the horror of rationality
untethered to other essential archetypes like feeling and intuition.
This presents challenges to understanding these Sixth house Mercury psychologies in aspects
with other astrological indicators. The emotional detachment, for instance, required by a highly
educated, trained and skilled surgeon to maintain a steady dispassionate hand while bloodily
cutting through another human's organs to remove unhealthy tissues may be indistinguishable
astrologically from the indicators of a sadist or homicidal psychopath – or from a worker in a
slaughterhouse or poultry processing plant, or a hero in combat. The archetypal energies may
look the same in horoscopes, though the motives, education, training and intent underlying them –
and the end results – are defined as constructive or destructive, honorable or despicable.
Further, individual reactions toward use and expression of these archetypal energies are
completely different. The surgeon rightly feels no remorse and loses no sleep over the cutting
and blood involved in the operating room because the intent is healthy and life-saving. The
psychopath may equally lack remorse, because the intent is affectless and also seen as life-
saving: "Whores deserve what's coming to them." "I beat Satan out of that evil child."
Slaughterhouse workers may or may not recognize that the methods of slaughter imposed on them
by their bosses and corporations are or are not 'humane': they may consider the slaughter
necessary to feed humanity. Others in that same factory may react differently and have to repress
their remorse to hold onto their jobs: in which case their buried feelings necessarily seek other
outlets, often in personal relationships and their health.
Can those variable outcomes – a surgeon, war hero or axe murderer – be readily distinguished in
horoscopes? Not necessarily. Many other factors beyond astrology must usually be known and
taken into account. Nor is it surprising to learn that some skilled surgeons, or some highly skilled
and trained military or law enforcement personnel, or some slaughterhouse workers and the like
may exhibit appallingly mean, destructive or sadistic private behavior. Astrology cannot
definitively say where or if the lines are crossed. It can say that the potentials for crossing them
are indeed present in a chart and may need to be consciously discussed and honored to build and
maintain psychological self-integration and health.
Though Mercury's archetype is about 'connecting,' its Trickster component can be dissociative
and disconnective. Gossip, a frequent tactic of Mercury, may serve to connect others or separate
them. Divide and conquer is a typical conscious or unconscious strategy with Mercury in the
Sixth in hard aspects.
But divide-and-conquer also typically plays out in their own psychologies and self-integration:
or rather, self-disintegration. Mercury here begs serious examination of potentials for mental
illnesses from mild to extreme, since these will influence all areas of life from physical health to
occupational and financial stability and security.
As always in astrology and psychology, it is the unconsciousness of the truth that poses the
threat, not its conscious acknowledgment. In Mercury's archetype, its truth is acceptance of its
duality.
We are taught and conditioned to believe in either-or, black or white, true or false. But these
may poorly reflect reality, which contains infinite gradations and situational ethics requiring
more finely-attuned awareness. One common defense against the seeming threat of nuanced and
variable realities is to adopt external dogmas and uncritically obey authorities, thus relieving
oneself of the responsibility and possibility of human uncertainty and error.
Perhaps the greatest existential trick one can play on The Trickster is to consciously accept and
embrace both or all sides of Mercury's eternally dualistic energy archetype in one's psyche.
There is a level of conscious self-understanding that embraces all facets of self simultaneously –
good and bad, desirable and not – and in so doing sees the self as a whole, hearing its normal
thoughts and inner voices as a teacher oversees a classroom of mixed students from all
backgrounds – rowdy or docile – who are nonetheless there to learn and be taught.
Inner voices are not 'possession' by entities or demons or gods: they are the thoughts and voices
of the self and needn't be feared. Obviously, medical diagnoses of dissociative disorders like
schizophrenia, paranoia or hysteria are of a different order and may have physiological as well
as psychological components. But normal inner thoughts and voices are like a writer's
characters: they are vital and living, but always recognized as part of oneself. One needn't be an
axe murderer to research and write an effective thriller. See Dostoyevsky's "Crime and
Punishment." (Though Dostoyevsky's birth time receives a Rodden Rating of C, no better than
anecdotal, it places his Moon in his Sixth opposite Mercury in his Twelfth. He was also
epileptic. He is ranked by many as one of the most prominent psychologists in the history of
world literature.)
If the voices of the self clamor to be heard and recognized it is because they want to be loved,
corrected and encouraged to learn and grow, and perhaps given creative expression, like myriad
students in that classroom; not feared, judged or expelled.
Having eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Duality), humanity's hope –
and the hope of those with Mercury in the Sixth – may lie in maintaining a vigilant awareness
and respect for Both and All in One.
If that requires raising consciousness to a higher perspective through psychology and astrology,
perhaps it is only from the teacher's desk at the head of the classroom that we can see our inner
multiplicity for what it really is – our own embodiment of human nature in all its diversity and
wonder, dark and light – to attain true self-integration and finally regain Eden.

Venus in the Sixth House

Of all possible planetary archetypes for psychological self-integration, Venus in the Sixth is one
of the healthiest. Even when 'afflicted' by hard aspects from other archetypes, the energy of
Venus in the psyche naturally soothes, restores, heals and pacifies troubled waters.
Whatever psychological problems Venus may connote here, and they're potentially as serious
and debilitating as any, they stem from excess of one kind or another. Yet Venus' energy is
always ready to cooperate when genuine self-love and self-caring are the motives for self-
improvement. That cannot necessarily be said for other archetypes within the psyche (see Mars,
below), but it proves true in practice though many astrologers consider Venus 'accidentally
debilitated' in this house (as Venus is in its Fall in Virgo).
Why is Venus' energy so powerful and positive? Even non-astrologers have heard that Venus is
the ancient Goddess of Love. But 'love' in astrology is understood to be far more than romance
or sexual attraction.
Venus is the psyche's energy of valuing. Its essence is to esteem whatever it touches, then
support, nurture and merge with whatever or whomever that thing is. It's that simple.
And that complicated. Because Venus' archetype is as capable of loving and esteeming
destructive passions and dysfunctions as of loving healthy self-integration.
'Love' is the keyword to append to Venus in horoscopes, to begin understanding all its
implications. Venus loves everything about the sign and house it's in (good and bad). Venus in
aspect loves whatever other archetypes conjoin, sextile, square, inconjunct, trine or oppose it –
harmony or conflicts and all.
Venus rules the signs of Taurus (Earth) and Libra (Air), which are superficially associated with
material comforts and security and relationships. More deeply, those two archetypes are
associated with 1) establishing, possessing, owning, securing and making permanent (Fixed
Taurus), and 2) balancing (Cardinal Libra).
Viewed in that light, Venus' potentials for psychological dysfunction and self-disintegration
become more obvious. In a sign like Scorpio, for instance (Venus' Detriment), and with hard
aspects from other archetypes, an unconscious and undeveloped Venus may come to love
debaucheries of every kind, mistaking Sensing sexual passion for love; or chemically lowered
inhibitions for pleasure; even to extremes of basest self-destructive behaviors including
addictions and crimes.
Venus' other principle energy of 'balancing' – if absent developed Thinking functions of
consideration and discrimination – can seek to cooperate and harmonize with paths of least
resistance, falling victim to all manner of schemers, seducers, manipulators, con artists and
deceivers – or become those itself.
Venus is Exalted in Pisces (Water), a Feeling archetype of great compassion and empathy that
also contains a capacity for constructive (conscious) self-sacrifice. Unconscious self-sacrifice
can be unhealthy and dangerous, through self-victimizing choices in pleasure, habits,
associations, cults, romance or disreputable occupations. But Venus in Pisces (similarly to
Venus in the Sixth) always holds the promise of deep emotional transformation, transcendence
and ecstasy through drowning selfishness in consciously loving choices that are healthy instead
of destructive.
At bottom, selfishness is fear of losing something external that one believes one depends on.
Selfishness is a form of dependency always lurking behind addictions of any kind, to anyone or
anything. It is a Venus dysfunction: excessively valuing externals – anything outside the self – to
give one joy, pleasure or self-worth that is reliably only found within.
It is not uncommon with Venus in the Sixth of psychological self-integration to find lives
partaking of both the depths and heights of experience in the areas shown by Venus' rulerships
and house placement.
Once Venus' principal energy of valuing is understood, everything suddenly makes sense.
Venus in Sagittarius square Uranus in Virgo? Venus loves the fiery idealism, romance and
passion of people and ideas and it loves the battles of wills and separations and arguments and
fights and breakups and divorces and dramatic ups and downs that would shame a scripted TV
soap opera. It loves its independence and its overwhelming need for attention, approval,
admiration and worship from lovers, children, friends, students, acolytes and sycophants. It
loves traditions, propriety and approval but also loves contesting them. Given a round hole it
loves playing the square peg, and vice versa. It loves to argue at the drop of a hat – or even
absent the hat. It loves proving its expertise, taking itself too seriously, and playing the clown. It
loves its work and loves getting away with faking it. Sound like a crazy-maker? This
configuration loves driving others (and itself) nuts – though it will argue a therapist into the
psych ward by insisting it's completely sane and consistent. Paradoxically, this square makes a
terrific therapist – and the most recalcitrant patient.
'Love' is Venus' problem and it's not necessarily a bad one to have if it's moderated and learns
adult discrimination – which it inevitably will – often – if it is in the Sixth house at birth. This
house, recall, forms an inconjunct angle to the Ascendant. Venus here loves finding small
conflicts with others and within itself to adjust, fix and test itself – and sometimes big conflicts
too. It loves this house and the whole ongoing process of psychological self-integration, because
the nature of this energy is to love wherever it finds itself – to a point. Thus this placement is
often noted for its ability to get along with everybody, high and low, rich or poor – to a point.
There is always a portion of Venus in the Sixth that is reserved and withheld, and others sense
that. Fundamentally, it's a fear of drowning in the Other that motivates this position's subtle need
for distance and control. It functions best in relationships with intellectual equals who are as
devoted to their work and careers as it is; who also require privacy and time alone instead of
continual intimacy.
Mundanely, this position often loves pets and small animals too. Psychologically, it's not
surprising to find undeveloped types treating friends, lovers and colleagues like pets, becoming
genuinely heartbroken, miffed and confused when their human pets metaphorically refuse to be
housebroken 'for their own good'.
If you're beginning to get a bit sick of the word 'love,' you're onto Venus' primary weakness
when it comes to physical and mental health (both excellent career vectors for this position,
incidentally). Venus forms attachments – strong though not always deep or lasting – to people,
places and things it loves, good and bad – and never understands when they don't love it back.
It's difficult for it to comprehend why, for instance, "I always choose people who ultimately
leave me." The answer is because this Venus position may unconsciously want them to leave –
then come back. It often smothers with its love, if unconscious, and subtly values the conflict and
separation as much as the love at first sight. But paradoxically, if unconscious, it also seeks to
avoid what it considers too much intimacy. As idealistic as Venus in the Sixth house can be, it is
rarely satisfied or contented. Something is always 'wrong' on some level, and in need of
managing, therapy or readjustment. It may seem to continually 'test' lovers and close friends to
validate their affections.
Venus here can be extremely self-critical as it eternally seeks to love and improve itself – not to
mention those it loves but sometimes unwittingly drives away.
All that said, Venus in the Sixth never gives up trying to value and love itself as a whole: to
integrate its overall psychology. Its sign placement in the Sixth House points to an individual's
dominant Type of self-integration – Intuition, Sensing, Thinking or Feeling – even when that
Type is not the person's overall dominant Type – another contrast between astrology and
analytical psychology.
It's common to find people whose Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) may be, say, INTP
(Introvert Intuitive Thinking Perceiving) whose effective Type of psychological self-integration
(indicated by astrology) is ESTJ (Extravert Sensing Thinking Judging). Understanding how,
when and where both Types operate in a person's life can lead to the most efficient and effective
therapeutic approaches.
It is usual, in fact, for a person's astrological Type of psychological self-integration to vary or
conflict in ways small or large with their predominant overall Type in analytical psychology.
This may be viewed as heresy or nonsense, depending on one's experience with astrology, or as
adding enriching layers of understanding and solutions not otherwise apparent or available to
psychotherapists.
The natural and positive dynamic with Venus in the Sixth is to grow to love the process of
individuation over loving the persona, and successfully integrate most or all facets of self. As
usual, that requires conscious comprehension and effort.
Because 'love' essentially means 'value' to Venus' energy in the psyche, Venus in the Sixth wants
to be or get well. It wants to be mentally and physically healthy. It wants to live in harmony with
itself and the world. It wants to find beauty and balance. All else being equal, all those are
reasons Venus here can so vitally contribute to overall happiness and well-being, though it may
perceive a hundred little readjustments to be made every day.
Metaphysically, always wanting something unintentionally keeps it at bay, since the underlying
belief (wanting) is 'lack.' One doesn't want what one already has: one instead appreciates it and
values having it. One may fight to maintain or retain it if it appears threatened, but not to gain it
since 'it' already belongs to the self. Those with Venus in the Sixth often have trouble
appreciating the subtle but powerful distinction.
Simplistically, Venus is the Pleasure Principle. It seeks (by sign and house position and aspects
to or from other planetary archetypes) what looks, sounds and feels good. But this is feeling on
Sensing and Thinking levels and differs from pleasure on Emotional or Intuitive levels. It also
points to the negative potentials of Venus here for overindulgence and addictions to pleasure
through food, drugs, sex, gambling (which can deplete finances and contribute to poor nutrition
and exercise habits), et al., and their attendant diseases (with hard aspects to Venus).
The arts, healing professions, spiritual and humanitarian careers – and those catering to people's
tastes and recreation – are among the most positive and constructive avenues for Venus' energies
in the Sixth house. This position truly loves to be of service.
Though Venus, as mentioned, is traditionally considered 'accidentally debilitated' in the Sixth
house (as it's in its Fall in Virgo), in practice it actually appears to operate more healthily in this
house than not, unless beset with close hard aspects.
A common phenomenon with this placement, however, is the already noted inner withholding of
a portion of self even in strong and lasting love ties of friendship or romance or professional
commitments, which is sensed by partners or colleagues who may feel unable to completely
'reach' this type. If so, it is a self-protective withholding usually learned through a bad first love
or marriage, or an early abusive parent or boss, and can be unlearned once acknowledged.
Even in lives hit hard with health issues, disabilities or injuries, Venus here still demonstrates a
remarkable facility for genuine resilience, optimism, recovery, compensation and determination
to show its best face to the world and to itself.
Venus' symbol resembles a hand mirror, which may be its secret all along when it comes to
understanding what love really is. If it's true that we seek others who reflect what we most love
(but perhaps project) and value in ourselves, and vice versa, maybe we can consciously mirror
their best qualities, and they ours. We fall in love, when we do, with the best in ourselves,
projected onto the beloved. If they later disappoint, it's our own disillusionment with ourselves
that evokes sorrow, as much as anything else. If we remember that we love ourselves when we
love another, maybe it's possible to forgive their foibles and failings even as we do our own.
If it's true that we cannot fully love another unless we truly love ourselves, we must first love
what we see in the mirror when we're alone.
At its highest and best, then, Venus in the Sixth of psychological self-integration truly learns to
love and honor itself (shadows too).
And everybody loves a lover.

Mars in the Sixth House

The ancient God of War here can most obviously indicate a person battling with themselves and
the world. Like actual wars, there are positive and negative consequences with this placement.
The essential distinction with Mars energy in the psyche lies in comprehending the difference
between fighting against and fighting for.
Mars in the Sixth can indicate Type A personalities in pop-psychology vernacular (for which
there is indeed some validity, suggests research since the 1950s): aggressive, driven, ambitious,
status conscious, competitive, impatient, highly concerned with time management, quick-
tempered, irritated and angered by ambiguities and delays, tending to take on more than they may
be able to handle. Simultaneously, there can be strong urges to help others and a relentless
insistence on telling the truth, making the point and getting on with the task(s) at hand. Multi-
tasking is another common trait with so-called Type A personalities – along with elevated
testosterone and some predisposition toward coronary disease (though not necessarily mortality
from it).
If it is understood that Mars' archetype represents assertion and action in all forms, its
placement in the Sixth house becomes clearer in psychological self-integration.
Mars is the archetype for action, aggression, physicalization, anger and violence, among other
things. The way Mars expresses is scripted by its sign position. The areas of life where it
expresses most directly are shown by its house placement and the houses with Aries and Scorpio
on their cusps.
Mars energies are comfortable in Fire and Air signs (Intuition and Thinking); less easy or
harmonious in Earth and Water (Sensing and Feeling).
Matter (Earth) is inherently more resistant to the rapid, immediate changes and results sought by
Mars, which is why these types often delegate practical follow-through to slower-moving others
while racing off to their next brilliant project.
Donald Trump (whose birth time has an AA rating) has Mars in Leo almost exactly on his
Ascendant – so the traits he seems to share with this Sixth house position actually apply to his
persona. His Sixth house of psychological self-integration is empty and ruled by Aquarius
(Saturn-Uranus). His tight Uranus-Sun (father, men, himself) conjunction in Gemini is almost
exactly opposed by his Moon in Sagittarius (mother, women); The Donald's mode of self-
integration is all about proving himself to everybody every day in every way. Why? What's he
so urgent to prove? Anyone familiar with his father, Fred, and background could write a book on
The Donald's horoscope longer than "War and Peace," leaving out the bit about "peace": starting
with his ascent to the throne beginning at age 22 (his Tenth house Sun's degree) when he joined
his dad's firm. The Donald is all persona; no individuation. A magnificent rogue and lovable –
from a distance.
Mars in the Sixth can quickly grow impatient with the time-consuming and often plodding efforts
required to put plans and schemes into step-by-step actions that translate into material results
and success (unless in a micro-managing sign like Virgo). Hence they're natural executives and
take-charge leaders and motivators.
Emotions (Water) operate in completely different spheres of the psyche than thinking and acting.
Feelings seem to have lives of their own for these types, conveying as they do various
unconscious realities that are always less obvious and harder to account for than ideas and
actions. Mars in Water signs here may express through unacknowledged feeling undercurrents
and complexes that hinder its effectiveness through emotional outbursts, brusqueness,
inconsiderateness or hypersensitivity to slights, questions and objections.
When conscious, however, and focused through deliberate education and training, Mars in the
Sixth can operate incredibly effectively in any of the four elements or Jungian Types. A
consciously developed Mars in Earth signs may excel in athletics, engineering, architecture, real
estate development, business, politics, industry, surgery, demolitions, warfare, sculpture and so
on.
Mars in Water, if aware, educated and trained, may wield much influence and amass great
financial wealth through avenues including shipping, marine and maritime industries, petroleum,
agriculture, mining and minerals, banking and finance, chemistry, biology, pharmaceuticals, food
and beverage industries, nursing and hospitals, hotels and resorts, real estate, religious and
spiritual fields, psychology, music and the arts, and education.
One key in vocational analysis with astrology – which to be truly effective must simultaneously
fulfill a person's psychological self-integration shown by this house – is identifying those
careers favored by the sign Mars is in and the houses where Aries and Scorpio are on the cusps.
Mars is the psyche's energy expressed outwardly through actions, as well as the type of internal
drive, aggression, etc., or lack of it.
Whatever vocational paths or personal areas of expression, Mars' energies are always
characterized by self-assertion in any sign (Fire, Earth, Air or Water). This may become readily
apparent aggression and pugnacity, even when Mars is repressed by hard aspects from Saturn or
flooded with buried emotional undercurrents stemming from childhood (as with Mars in Cancer,
say); the resulting depressions or childish tantrums or relief (from deep emotional tensions)
sought through alcoholism or promiscuity can suddenly turn milquetoasts into raging bulls. Fight
or flight is Mars' only immediate natural alternative and fighting is almost always first.
Cooperation must be found elsewhere in the horoscope (Venus, for instance).
It's important to note that depression can often result from and mask buried anger. This surprises
astrologers used to thinking of Mars as expressive, on-the-surface, direct and obvious. But when
the self knows it should take action, or express itself, yet prevents it for some reason, pressure
builds: Mars energy is constrained (e.g., to conform to social norms, save a needed job or
preserve a marriage). The buildup of internal anger and self-imposed impotence is (sometimes
literally) heartbreaking. Depression is one common symptom of a caged Mars.
"In an ideal world, if nobody else mattered, what would you most like to do with your life
right now?" One's spontaneous answer to that question may sound silly, impractical or
impossible, but in all likelihood it contains the seeds for overcoming depression. From the
answer can eventuate a course of considered, realistic and constructive actions that may be
prescribed and taken to give Mars' energy positive outlets.
It is essential to identify talents and objectives Mars can fight for, instead of its taking the path of
least resistance and focusing on what it can fight against.
Mars is nature's centrifugal force (center-fleeing). Venus is nature's centripetal force (center-
seeking). The two planets' glyphs – also the glyphs for male and female – graphically depict
their energies.
Metaphysicians extrapolate volumes of meanings from the basic shapes of astrology's glyphs:
combinations of the circle, half-circle and straight lines. Books have been written on their
meanings and significance. Simplistically, the circle is said to symbolize 'spirit'; the half-circle
'mind'; and straight lines (and crosses) 'matter.'
Both Venus' and Mars' glyphs begin with the circle. With Mars, an arrow (sometimes a cross)
extends upward and out from the circle. With Venus, the cross extends downward from the
circle. Metaphysicians for millennia have imparted much significance to these symbols for
completely different energy types, with the circle representing the 'life force' at the center of
everything.
The upward, outward-reaching cross or arrow (Mars) signifies the centrifugal expression of
energy outward into three-dimensional matter. It is individual action (arrow) emerging from the
circle (whole). The downward, inward-reaching cross (Venus) signifies the centripetal energy
of matter taken into spirit and subservient to the life force (beneath the circle), or individual
action taken within the whole. Biologically, in reproduction, males penetrate females and
ejaculate seed (matter): females receive the seed inwardly, which fertilizes their egg to grow a
new individual inside their womb.
That new life, after gestating nine months, is expelled outward into the world (centrifugal Mars
again) in a mutually assertive act on the mother's and newborn's parts; the umbilical cord is cut
(Mars of cutting) and the new person begins its external life apart from its maternal origins
(Mars-ruled Aries; first sign, of new birth, in astrology's Natural Wheel).
In same-sex ties, the doubled emphasis on Solar (male), Lunar (female), Mars (male) and Venus
(female) archetypes leads to natural stereotypes not always true for any one same-sex couple but
indeed noticeable in their respective groups. Two males double the Sun-Mars archetypes; two
females double the Moon-Venus archetypes.
Male couples, with their externalized genitalia (Mars' glyph physicalized), are historically
stereotyped and characterized by outgoing 'sex without commitment', open relationships,
preoccupation with size, promiscuity or numerous partners. Female couples are stereotypically
noted for greater emphasis on nesting, drawing protective boundaries around their relationships,
absorbing others into their "family." Cyndi Lauper may have been wrong: men just want to have
fun. Women want commitments. The story's in their glyphs.
One irony in lifelong same-sex relationships throughout history is that they have lasted without
benefit of collective support like marriage licenses, children, religious or church 'families',
government benefits or even family or societal approval (often violent condemnation). They
have flourished and survived, against all odds, solely on mutual love itself. Does that tell you
something of the power of Venus' archetype in psyches?
Mars in the Sixth guarantees that elements of sex and power will be prominent for good or ill in
an individual's psychological self-integration. In most societies, those Mars expressions are
precisely the most difficult to talk about, admit honestly, analyze or heal if pathological.
Religions focus obsessively-compulsively on controlling sexual urges and expression not merely
for reproduction and growing the tribe but also because the archetypes are also the archetypes
for power and action, thus threatening to self-defined authorities.
With Mars in the Sixth house, everything depends on its sign and aspects for its easy, positive
and constructive functioning or its difficult, negative and destructive expression. That's true for
all planetary archetypes, but it's more clear with Mars than most others, since Mars represents
physicalized outgoing actions and expressions.
Mercury may be what people think and say, but Mars is what they do. Actions speak louder than
words.
Mars' inherent nature is to act first, think later (if at all). It is a naturally Intuitive energy that
responds more effectively to behavior modification than to lengthy analysis. It can easily see and
understand its own and others actions, but is less inclined to take time to analyze inner thoughts
and motives deeply – its own or others'. Transactional Analysis can be highly productive with
these types.
Cooperation is perhaps Mars' greatest lesson to be learned, since its essence is entirely self-
based and self-initiating. That's true in its psychological self-integration as well. Particularly
with hard aspects from other planetary archetypes (and their associated parts of the psyche and
the physical body), there is a natural tendency to wage internal combat and project those battles
onto others rather than seek compromise, cooperation and harmony.
Physiologically, afflicted Mars energies can result in inflammations, acidosis, fevers,
ulcerations, injuries, assaults, accidents, bites, burns, cuts, wounds and the like. Those are often
initially reflected in the psyche – especially through irritability and anger (rage, in contrast to
anger, is Plutonic). Positive and constructive anger can be highly adaptive, protective and
beneficial. Unconscious anger isn't. Understanding the source of negative anger is the only real
solution to the myriad problems it causes internally and externally.
Psychologically, Mars problems usually relate to men, one way or another. They may point to
difficult father-figures, or a mother who disparages and abuses men, or the absence of an early
male role-model, etc. For men, a difficult Mars directly influences their own definitions of
manhood and their role as a man. For women, a difficult Mars is often projected outward onto
significant males in their lives.
Though not at all examined in depth in this book, Jung's concept of the anima and animus are
enormously significant in psychological self-integration and must be analyzed in astrology by
considering the Sun, Moon, Venus and Mars archetypes in horoscopes.
Mars is primarily the physical aspects of sex. It has little to do with emotional aspects of love,
but rather the physical action of moving toward the object of one's affections. Venus is the
emotional archetype in love. It is fascinating and revealing to study the ways in which these two
dynamic aspects of love – emotional valuing and physical dominance, submission, conquest and
submission – harmonize or clash in psyches.
Mars' rulership of Scorpio acknowledges the ancient archetypal link between sex, violence,
death and rebirth, gods and goddesses – themes of powerful depth, mystery and meaning since
humanity's earliest stories ("Gilgamesh" forward).
Hard aspects to Mars may be implicated in various forms of sexual assault, from subtle to
outright rape or homicide, which in turn may be traced in horoscopes to early conditioning about
men and women, the animus and anima, or to genetic predispositions.
The sign Mars occupies also suggests conditioning of physical sexual expression, including
assertiveness or passivity in sexual acts; neurosis, squeamishness, ambivalence, revulsion,
neutrality or asexuality. It is also one indicator in abortions (surgery) as well as hysterectomies
and surgery or injury to reproductive organs.
Alcohol or drugs are common means for reducing inhibitions and anxieties in sexuality, but carry
their own risks. There are individuals who have never had sex sober. Considering the innate
power of sexuality and the sex drive, for most, if those become associated with alcohol or drugs,
the addictive powers of both the substance and sex itself are magnified and far more likely to
indicate real problems ramifying through work, finances, relationships and health.
With experience and practice it is often possible to explore with clients, if they wish, great
detail about the role of sex in their psyches and lives. Astrologers in smaller and less diversified
cities are unlikely to have many, if any, clients who are pedophiles, rapists, transvestites or
transsexuals, much less serial rapists or killers. In larger cities and with a larger clientele,
however, those and clients who are prostitutes, spouse-swappers, sado-masochists, into
bondage and discipline, role players, promiscuous and so on are not uncommon – though again
the astrologer must tread cautiously.
Astrologers see nothing in charts that they aren't initially motivated to seek, for whatever
reasons. It is usually unnecessary to go particularly deeply into sexuality unless it presents itself
as problematic in the horoscope. Astrologers who came of age during the sexual revolution of
the '60s, and those in larger cities with a large clientele, might be more inclined to research and
familiarize themselves with the variety of psychodynamics in human sexuality all around them, to
meet clients' questions and needs. Additionally, astrologers themselves may have 'problems'
with sexuality that make this area of living, and of horoscopes and clients' lives, difficult to
approach.
As a rule, it is sufficient simply to introduce the suggestion from the horoscope that sexuality
may be 'problematic' and 'might' interfere with other areas of their lives, or pose some risk of
illegality, criminality or arrest, if those potentials are indicated. Quite often, again because of the
confidentiality of sessions and their trust in the astrologer, clients are willing to open up
completely about such areas in ways they might never reveal to other professionals.
With Mars in the Sixth house, sexuality in one way or another is bound to be a crucial element of
psychological self-integration, more emphatically than with other placements.
Since Mars is the archetype for assertiveness and aggression but also violence in the psyche, it
may always carry potentials for psychic or physical injury to the self and / or others by its
placement. These are some of the most treacherous yet essential areas for exploration by
astrologers and psychotherapists.
But if this ancient God of War is recognized as the source and impetus for all action and
physicalized self-expression, perhaps the distinction between fighting for the self instead of
against perceived opponents (within and without) can be secured and the possessors of the
ancient wisdom become the Noble Warriors and Righteous Amazons of storied lore.

Jupiter in the Sixth House

Jupiter is considered the Greater Benefic in traditional astrology (Venus is the Lesser Benefic).
While Venus' archetype in the psyche is certainly (partly) concerned with valuing beauty,
harmony, material comforts and financial security, Jupiter's role in the psyche really has nothing
to do with any of those or with materiality. It often appears to, in astrology, because whatever
material attainments may accompany Jupiter's placement in horoscopes are byproducts of its
essential principles of exploration, expansion, fearlessness, aspiring and striving. So novice
astrologers are constantly surprised when Jupiter apparently fails to bring lottery winnings and
easy riches.
What Jupiter does often indicate by birth position or transit is where a person naturally
expresses optimism and eager confidence. Those inner expectations of happiness and success
often translate to favorable job interviews, classroom studies, notarizing contracts, incorporating
businesses and making terrific impressions on first dates.
The elements of Fire (Sagittarius) and Water (Pisces) are Jupiter's ancient associations and it is
Exalted in Cancer, sign of family, roots, ancestry, fecundity, protection, food and shelter. As
relates to psychological self-integration, Cancer is the psyche's place of self-containment,
security and safety – and Jupiter in Cancer or the Fourth – or Sixth – is one of the potentially
'healthiest' positions an individual can have (just as afflictions to Cancer or the Moon may
potentially endanger one's sense of security and safety and threaten self-containment).
The operative word is potentially. Similar to Venus' archetypal energy, problems of
psychological self-integration linked to Jupiter in the Sixth are usually the result of 'too much' of
a good thing: going to extremes, in other words.
Venus' energies, in contrast with Jupiter's, are most comfortable in the earthy and airy archetypes
of Taurus and Libra (though Exalted in watery Pisces). Jupiter finds its most natural expression
in the fiery and watery archetypes of Sagittarius and Pisces (and its Exaltation in watery
Cancer).
In that schematic, Venus' archetype operates most readily through Sensing and Thinking
functions: Jupiter through Intuitive and Feeling functions.
Venus may seek sensory comfort, physical pleasure, the charms and attractions of the arts, the
delights of social interactions and what is called 'romance'. But Venus' archetype and energies
have little to do with physical sex, which is Mars – suggesting a primordial reason that lust can
ultimately (and to some, surprisingly) conflict with love. The reason becomes clearer when it's
realized that Venus seeks to join in harmony and Mars seeks to dominate, possess and conquer –
predisposing to the notorious 'romantic' difficulties and even dangerous entanglements
experienced by many with Venus in passionate, possessive Scorpio, for instance, or Venus in
hard aspect to Mars.
Jupiter's archetype also has nothing to do with 'sex' in the physical sense, nor anything to do with
'love' or 'romance' in their traditional meanings. Its ancient association with the archetype of the
centaur – half-human, half-horse – reveals Jupiter's dual energy of animal instincts aspiring to
'higher' human development: evolution, in other words. Indeed, the animal sides of human
existence (including sex and reproduction) often give Jupiter its greatest challenges and
difficulties in the psyche (and perhaps the physical body as well). That is one reason such
Jupiter 'afflictions' may seek relief from pressures, anxieties or inhibitions through drugs
including alcohol.
Jupiter's Intuitive function strives ever outward, ever higher, in every realm. It naturally seeks, in
astrology and in the psyche, 'higher' education of all types, along with science, medicine, law,
religion, philosophy and metaphysics. 'Higher' communication, mass communication,
communication with 'God' or a 'higher self' or 'psychic guide' as well as with teachers,
professors, gurus or cult leaders are other avenues commonly sought by Jupiter's aspirational
function.
Nothing frustrates and stunts Jupiter's growth like abbreviated education. Even when finances or
other responsibilities and obligations prevent Jupiter's obtaining an advanced formal degree or
limit it to more mundane occupations, its explorative entrepreneurial instincts still search
informally for ideas and means to express its Big Ideas and Dreams.
Jupiter in the psyche, essentially an energy of freedom and independence, innately fights
imposed restraint and control – like the element of Fire. If its energies are frozen at adolescent
levels of development and lack exposure to diversity or education, Jupiter may become the ill-
informed opinionated fanatic seen in religious fundamentalists – projecting onto others its own
interior war for control over its 'baser' instincts.
Jupiter is also impressionable, especially when immature or undeveloped. It can instinctively
mistake trappings of success and achievement for genuine worth, whether deserved or not. The
phrase, "He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing," perfectly describes this
type. Then Jupiter becomes the pedant and know-it-all; pretending wisdom, expertise or
authority it hasn't actually earned, simply parroting others by whom it's impressed. Or it
personifies the braggart and snob; obviously insecure but conflating material status, brand names
and bank accounts with self-worth.
Obvious is another inherent trait of Jupiter's energy. Like all fiery archetypes it's a poor liar –
even or especially to itself. To burn – to give heat and light – fire requires fuel. In Jupiter's case
that means, above all, education and training. Its striving aspirational nature wants to impress
and to influence. When it lacks foundation, facts, preparation and consistent effort, it makes them
up or pretends. It can fool some of the people some of the time, but sooner or later it gets caught.
Why?
Jupiter's is an essentially honest and straightforward energy, often characterized by an
outspoken, opinionated, argumentative and righteous quality. It loves the adventure and is usually
a risk-taker (it longs to be seen as a high-achiever, but also as respectable). It doesn't intend to
hurt or harm so much as impress: yet hurt and harm it can, through thoughtlessness, pretense and
overconfidence.
The Thinking function represented by Sagittarius' opposite sign, Mercury-ruled Trickster
Gemini, can embody Jupiter's shadow since the centaur archetype is more at home with
Intuitions and Feelings. Even when determined to pull the wool over everybody's eyes by
playing roles it hasn't actually attained, it unconsciously wants to get found out and caught. So it
inevitably does.
Frank Abagnale, Jr., the infamous jovial (Jupiter's moniker) con artist whose life hit the screen
in "Catch Me If You Can," has an unknown birth time (and possibly an incorrect birth date!); but
his commonly accepted date (calculated for noon) yields his Moon conjunct Jupiter in
Sagittarius.
It is not uncommon with both Mercury and Jupiter in hard aspects with other planetary
archetypes, especially in Mutable signs, to conceal a secret fear of mental illness – or even
display evidence of the real thing. The inherent duality of Mutable positions predisposes to
seeing (and relating to) all sides of everything as fits the moment most expediently, which can
support an essential instability, restlessness and inner conflict that makes focus and consistency
difficult. Add Jupiter's exaggerative, expansive, explorative energies and (real or imagined)
mountains can be made of molehills. Mere neurosis may be taken for looming psychosis or
schizophrenia. And while such tendencies may just be Jupiter's typically trying to turn a
Volkswagen into a Rolls-Royce, they may reveal actual medical or mental problems that need
exploring.
Jupiter's yearning for mental and physical adventure can take it far and wide in pursuits of
knowledge and excellence. Its co-rulership of Pisces acknowledges its vast humanitarian and
collective instincts, too. Idealistic and cause-oriented, when backed by education, knowledge
and training Jupiter can become an enormously influential leader in whatever missions for
human betterment it undertakes. Jane Fonda, a Sagittarian whose time of birth receives an AA
Rodden Rating, has Jupiter almost exactly on her Ascendant.
But it is Jupiter's Exaltation in Cancer that suggests its foundational potentials for restoration and
healing even when faced with extremes of physical or psychological challenge. Cancer and the
Fourth house are the Emotional functions' home of personal self-integration even as Virgo and
the Sixth house are archetypes for psychological self-integration primarily through Sensing and
Thinking functions. In the Fourth house or Cancer, Jupiter's aspiration is always toward
increased Feeling security. One usual result is the accompanying physical and material security
(not always material riches, however) that naturally follows that inner quest (often sidetracked,
but never completely eliminated or prevented, by hard aspects to Jupiter).
Jupiter in Cancer or the Fourth – and in the Sixth – is therefore one of astrology's signatures of
resilience, confidence, a strong psyche, adaptability, compensating ability, appreciation of self-
knowledge and understanding, and overall 'health' both mentally and physically. Those are
primary reasons why these Jupiter positions support healthy self-realization in virtually any
vocational field truly sought by these types. Vocational fulfillment naturally corresponds to
psychological fulfillment (and vice versa).
Jupiter in the Sixth may indicate precocity with some talent or skill, or even a child prodigy. The
resulting applause, delight and admiration from others is encouraging and produces a psychology
of expecting approval and success which may carry over into adulthood to produce great
accomplishments. That kind of psychological self-integration can produce the Golden Child who
seems to lead a charmed life, in many ways, though behind the scenes they're as likely to have
problems as anybody.
Jupiterian problems (hard aspects) are always of the nature of excess, immaturity, lack of
education or experience, impatience or egomania. They may always and ultimately be
controlled, corrected, trained or compensated for. Even in extreme situations like alcoholism or
when such types are convicted of crimes or imprisoned for life, they can rehabilitate themselves
and become prison ministers, authors, start prison educational programs and otherwise find
reasons to keep striving to become better individuals.
The same tendencies apply to these types if their lives are restricted through poverty or
disabilities. Such is Jupiter's energy in the psyche that within their given limitations, they still
aim to be a free and independent spirit always learning something new, something more . . .
reaching for their birthright beyond the stars.
Saturn in the Sixth House
Saturn is the Holy Grail of horoscopes.
What's a person's problem? Greatest challenge? Cross to bear? Saddest loss? Deepest hurt?
Source of regret? Burned bridges? Darkest fear? Obstacle to overcome?
Astrologers study Saturn.
What's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? The buried treasure? Reward for a life well-
lived and a job well done?
Saturn.
What's your karma?
Your life's foundation and framework on which all else is built?
Where is Wisdom?
Truth?
Guess.
No wonder most astrologers focus first, laser-like, on Saturn's sign, house and aspects. Since
1976 I've told workshops, seminars, conventions and students – only half-facetiously – that to be
the best astrologer on the block, absorb Liz Greene's "Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil." It's
one of the best five astrology books written in the 20th Century and it would take a week to
decide the other four.
Saturn is the Great Malefic? Fine. If that's all you know, start from there. Confronting your fears
is said to be good for you. Sooner or later you'll have to grapple with Saturn anyway.
When Saturn is in the Sixth house, psychological self-integration or lack of it will make or break
you. The same may be said for your occupation and career.
This is the classic placement for one of two eventualities in job and career. 1) Either the
individual becomes the best they can be at whatever they do, taking a thoroughly professional,
hard-working and dedicated approach to every step up the ladder (the inevitable reward for
their efforts), or 2) they become chronic complainers, whiners and failures at everything they try
– blaming others for their poor job performance, constant excuses, bad habits, inability to get
along with colleagues, co-workers and customers and self-defeating incompetence.
Nor do those two possibilities depend on the actual job position. Even when other factors such
as lack of education or finances prevent vocational training; even when on the lowest rungs of
occupational classifications; these types still have the option of being the best or worst at
whatever they do. It's all up to them.
'Inside' is usually the last place people with this position want to look for psychological self-
integration, so painful, embarrassing, humiliating, guilt- and shame-inducing – yet revealing –
are Saturn's secrets. Yet paradoxically, this position can make the best in-depth psychologists of
all!
In negative types, it's far easier to rationalize problematic predispositions; project them outward
and blame others for their own failings and shortcomings; adopt destructive habits and
addictions to ease discomfort, temporarily banish fears and misdirect personal responsibility; or
curse Fate.
But Saturn always wins, even if it kills you. Or rather, if you do yourself in by not facing its
facts. With Saturn in the Sixth, you may start out as your own worst enemy. If you're smart, or
just honest, at the end of the road you'll realize it's been your best friend all along.
In the short haul, you're going to get hurt – maybe badly – by the psychological functions related
to the sign Saturn's in, the houses (with Capricorn and Aquarius on their cusps) it rules, and the
other planetary archetypes it touches by aspects.
Hopefully, you'll recover and swear, "Never again."
For awhile you'll be convinced you've learned your lesson. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, shame on me." Wiser, stronger and more mature, you'll advance to make happy strides
and gains. Maybe psychology or astrology deepens your understanding and helps see you
through.
Then, WHAM! Along comes another hurt, another loss or setback more devastating than the first,
in exactly the same Saturn-ruled areas in your chart, forcing you to fight for your identity and
very likely your life, metaphorically or literally. Not in the acute immediate sense of fending off
a shark attack but in the chronic drawn-out sense of fighting coronary disease or cancer
(psychological or physiological).
Saturn's trials are meant to teach deeply existential lessons about yourself and how you live, so
it's common for this archetype to initially disguise itself as something wonderful – a great love
or major accomplishment, for example. Without that elation, there can be no subsequent despair
when things collapse. The despair is meant to motivate finding lasting solutions – like bottoming
out for an alcoholic.
There will come a day, promise Wise Old Women and Men of whatever chronological age in
our lives, when we can learn from elation and ecstasy, but not in the beginning, with Saturn
guarding the entry to the psyche's treasure, intoning, "Grow up, first."
Saturn's initial lessons are meant to frighten, hurt or threaten us enough to take ourselves – and
everything Saturn means in our horoscope – seriously. Mere obstacles and reversals aren't
enough, though they capture our attention.
Amazingly, the earliest and often most profoundly shaping of Saturn experiences will occur at or
near the age of Saturn's degree at birth. See "Using Degrees" in this series. Since there are only
30 degrees in a sign, that experience will occur during the first 30 years of life. And it will
always be centered in the psychological function shown by Saturn's sign – Intuition, Sensing,
Thinking or Feeling (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) – and house. Sometimes (with Saturn between 0º-
10º) its earliest shaping event may not be recalled or its deeper meanings dismissed, in which
case events occurring at a multiple of its degree (times 2, say), can be studied for their impact.
Similarly important Saturn-themed life-defining challenges, then, will occur at or near the ages
of multiples of Saturn's birth degree (and divisions of its birth degree).
You can gain tremendous clues to your own and clients' Saturn archetype by reflecting on Saturn
events at those ages, which are sometimes forgotten or more often devalued. "That was a long
time ago. I'm over that now." But in fact those events are pushed aside because of the
connotations of hurt, guilt or shame (real or, more often, artificial) that they carry and which
prevent getting at the truths of what happened.
When Saturn is in the Sixth house, life presents genetic, physiological or psychological and
externally conditioned challenges to be overcome, to learn from or, occasionally, succumb to.
These may be minor but they're usually of major significance. (Given the wonderful vagaries of
human experience, 'minor' and 'major' are always relative terms.)
Different individuals react to and learn from inherent characteristics, disabilities and challenges
– differently. Helen Keller? Stephen Hawking?
Perhaps the most common modus operandi of a sixth house Saturn in psychological self-
integration is to wall it off, block it, isolate it, refuse to have anything to do with it, abandon it.
Matters and events related to Saturn's sign, house and aspects may become so onerous and
distracting that it finally seems most expeditious to just say No: Not For Me.
Turning ones back on Saturn may seem to solve its challenges as far as the eye can see, and
prevent its distracting one from appearing to succeed outwardly, but it never really solves the
inner problem or reaps Saturn's potential rewards.
One can give up on love, sex, relationships, intimacy, booze, drugs, gambling, sugar, religion,
multi-level marketing 'opportunities,' self-help groups and gurus, belief in Santa Claus and the
Tooth Fairy and indeed lead a better life when Saturn's negative defense mechanisms are
dropped. But if its deeper meanings are merely dismissed, repressed or forgotten because they're
truly painful, there remains a hollow psychological core in certain areas that feels like a child
who's sadly died, gone missing or been abandoned. Easier, maybe, to just try and forget about it
all.
Yet there Saturn remains, locked in the attic or basement like the relative nobody talks about;
silently shaping every decision and reaction in life until it's either freed and consciously healed,
or eventually escapes to wreak havoc in the village. In any case, there is deep personal
significance and insight available from Saturn's early defining events.
One constellation of Saturn-in-the-Sixth traits ultimately revolves around fear or resentment of
psychological self-integration itself. To be whole, conscious and healthy may be the greatest
threat of all, for these types, who determinedly do whatever it takes to avoid assuming
responsibility for their own lives and choices – including becoming seriously ill or dying rather
than face living responsibly (as we saw with Ralph earlier). When such types receive diagnoses
of serious illnesses, they are the ones whose prognosis is likeliest to be poor.
Reactions to Saturn here can range from withdrawal to rebellion to violent lashing out . . . or
depression and resignation . . . or resolve and determination . . . or, typically, all of those. The
reactions can only be brought to consciousness and discussed if the person is willing: not
predicted from horoscopes alone.
There is a fundamental self-perception with this position that one is somehow, seriously, not
okay in some essential, private, frightening and threatening way, and that ultimately something
must be done about it.
With birth disabilities or early childhood injuries or illnesses, an individual may be the focus of
others' worry, concern or pity. That attention can instill a belief that those are the norm, or that
love from others means earning their worry, concern or pity. Even with complete physical
recovery the psychology may remain focused on unconsciously seeking the validation of illness
or problematic behaviors: playing the victim. Thus Saturn here can set up an unconscious need to
fail or suffer.
Simplistically, yet with profound validity, at its heart Saturn's archetype represents fear; a deep
existential fear on levels suggested by its sign placement's corresponding psychological function
(Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling), its house position and its aspects with other archetypes in
the horoscope.
The natural reaction is to adopt behaviors that avoid triggering that fear or which mask or soothe
it (addictions, for instance, or barricading or isolating the self in various ways). With time and
maturity (Saturn principles), the only genuinely healthy approach to living with Saturn is
consciousness and honesty.
Saturn always represents facts and truths. Many if not most people go to great lengths to avoid
those – especially about themselves. Avoidance in one form or another of internal or external
facts apparently lies at the root of all psychological disorders.
Dogmatic belief systems offering prefabricated rules for living that demand obedience to
externally imposed authority – in exchange for superiority over The Others – are one
collectively accepted means for avoiding and denying painful facts, conflicts and ambiguities
inherent in living. But they ultimately create more conflicts than they solve: witness millennia of
religious wars in the Middle East.
So is 'insanity' another means of avoidance, which – when not physiologically determined – is a
collectively accepted path toward abnegating adult responsibility and not facing objective facts
that appear too threatening. Those potentials too are indicated with Saturn in the Sixth. It is no
coincidence that psychologists are growing to view and treat addiction to fundamentalist religion
as a mental illness, not just of individuals but entire collectives, says Dr. Kathleen Taylor,
research scientist at Oxford University’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics.
It surprises many astrologers that Saturn in the Sixth can indicate obesity. Jupiter or Venus
archetypes are commonly understood to promote excesses, so they're often linked, correctly or
not, with obesity resulting from junk food and lack of exercise. But obesity can be a form of self-
protection and insulation from chronic psychological discomfort and pain, rather than mere
gluttony; in which case it is a Saturn phenomenon that – like everything else with Saturn – makes
perfect sense when understood.
Fat can be another means of walling off the self from perceived threats. Though it may become
enormously unhealthy, like any other Saturn defense mechanism, this kind of obesity must be
seen as an essentially loving (if wholly immature and misguided) attempt to protect the self from
potential hurts viewed as even more dangerous than obesity's risks of hypertension, coronary
disease, diabetes or cancer.
Further, there is often a collective societal collusion in obesity. Entire regions and localities
may be comprised of a majority obese population, starting in childhood. Food manufacturers and
advertising can promote poor nutrition. So can poverty. Since such people look and behave like
everybody around them, obesity appears 'normal.' Outsiders and those who are different, e.g.,
not obese, are instinctively rejected to protect the group.
The same behavior occurs with alcoholics, criminals, gang members, religious fanatics and
other behaviors – for the same self-protective self-justifying collective motives: wanting to
overcome fear, rejection, isolation and to belong.
In all such cases, objective scientific and medical facts (Saturn) may be deeply resisted even if
paid lip service.
Studying Saturn in the Sixth, it becomes increasingly clear that denial of facts to protect against a
deeper existential fear is an essential component in all disorders of psychological self-
integration involving this archetype.
A revealing phenomenon with Saturn's degree position at birth is its indication that
psychological maturity and development can be frozen or stunted by events occurring at the age
represented by Saturn's degree (or divisions of it). Saturn at 15 degrees of a sign, for example,
can correlate with painful or challenging events that, later in life, may be realized to have stalled
the individual's growth at the level of a 15 year old (or age 7½, Saturn's degree divided by 2).
All subsequent life choices, then, can be understood to make sense from the perspective of a 15
year old, though obviously incongruent with their chronological adulthood.
Conversely, Saturn in the Sixth may also exhibit what appears to be the same precocity that can
be found with Jupiter in this house. But Saturn's is quite different. These children (and
caregivers and teachers) are more likely to treat evidence of a 'child prodigy' with great
seriousness and want to provide discipline and training – primarily because early talents
appearing with Saturn here instead of Jupiter actually are more profound and impressive.
Thus the six year old who tickles the ivories like Vladimir Horowitz or has an I.Q. of 165 is
informed by the family's astrologer (doesn't every family have one?) that they actually were
Horowitz or Einstein in a former life, so much more is made of their gifts than with children
having Jupiter in this position, whose talents tend to be taken more light-heartedly and easily.
Child prodigies with Saturn in the Sixth may come to feel their lives are entirely dominated and
regimented by their talents, which they're obliged to live up to, unlike the more joyful and easy
expression encouraged by Jupiter's placement here.
Such Saturn-in-Sixth-house children display a maturity, adult wit and self-detachment far beyond
their years and easily distinguished from the more playful and rambunctious show-offs with the
psychological self-integration of Jupiter in the Sixth. The development and ultimate exploitation
(in the positive sense) of prodigious Saturn talents will dominate and shape the life as surely as
will an undeveloped, repressed or unhealthy Saturn in this house.
While this position can denote great competitiveness, ambition and drive to excel, those traits
can also often conceal deep-seated inferiority and insecurity on some level, typically having to
do with body image or perceived (or real) social and personality defects.
Because of the stress inherent with this Saturn placement until it is consciously acknowledged,
honored and healed (a lifelong process that's only fully rewarded later), self-medication through
addictions, neuroses or obsessive-compulsive rituals is not uncommon, as are stress-related
diseases, physical and mental.
It is also not uncommon with Saturn here to experience quite conscious anxieties, panic attacks
and depressions. These may stem from physiological conditions and / or psychological
conditioning from critical, undermining or guilt-inducing parents. Low self-esteem and chronic
'failure' is one result. Envy and resentment of others is another. So is hostile acting out. With
Mars, the hostility can take more obvious forms of anger and outbursts. With Saturn it often
manifests through passive-aggression, manipulation, moralistic judging and rejection. In Mutable
signs especially, and given other hard aspects, this position may point to potentials for bipolar
disorder or other mental disorders.
So-called psychosomatic illnesses can be concurrent with this Saturn position. But this too is a
double-edged sword. Physical illness can also produce psychological illness.
In any case, psychological and physical health must likely be taken seriously during life when
Saturn is found here. If it seems that the ancient axiom "Physician, heal thyself" can motivate
virtually any planet's focus in the Sixth house to pursue a career in a health-related field,
according to that planet's archetype, that's because it's true.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can be particularly helpful and constructive for those with this
Saturn position.
As always with Saturn, real and conscious inferiority feelings may be engendered early in life
through illness, poverty, psychologically or physically ill parents, or abuse of some kind
(including the most prevalent form of child abuse: neglect).
The Jungian Type or function represented by Saturn's sign element (Intuition, Sensing, Thinking,
Feeling) is always initially disadvantaged by Saturn's placement, whether or not the Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator points to that function as inferior or shadow or not.
Because Saturn represents the structuring function in the psyche, its energy erects the foundation
and scaffolding for the entire life, beginning in childhood – particularly around ages 7 and 14-
15, when Saturn forms its first opening square and then the opposition to its birth position.
It is also important to recognize Saturn's positive or 'easy' trines and sextiles in horoscopes,
particularly with personal rather than collective planetary archetypes. Because these too are
foundational and structural characteristics in the psyche – of security, reliability and
permanence. Matters represented by those planets, their signs and the houses they occupy may be
counted on throughout life to provide support and even material rewards, if consciously
developed. They may also point to specific abilities and talents of potentially great depth, even
in childhood, that are always available for vocational and professional achievement.
Whatever negative expressions Saturn synchronously forms early on will become chronic and
increasingly difficult to alter since everything is built atop and around them. Saturn will present
problems of deepening seriousness until it is consciously and effectively dealt with, at which
point the same function can begin healing to become the cornerstone of individuation,
psychological self-integration, happiness and lasting accomplishments.
When consciously embraced and deeply understood, Saturn here can indicate immense wisdom
and maturity – at any age, but usually from middle-age on and especially after 70. Its capacity
for focus and discipline marks those whose constructive dedication to their career pursuits
results in lasting achievements and influence. They often become highly respected leaders and
authorities in their fields.
Perhaps that's because of the intense self-involvement required for outstanding career success in
any pursuit. Saturn in the Sixth is nothing if not self-involved, which carries positive and
negative, constructive and destructive, potentials. Everybody has some talent or other, some
natural leaning, some yearning to achieve. But one of life's harder truths is that most people are
unprepared and unwilling to do everything it takes, for as long as it takes, to overcome hurdles
and reach the top. Excellence requires never-ending hard work, often at the expense of other
areas of life. The slogan sounds terrific and sometimes appears superficially true: "You can
have it all!" In fact, if you're honest (Saturn), you can't. So "Grow up!" as Joan Rivers would
say.
Astrologers are often asked, particularly in cities like Los Angeles or New York where high-
achievers abound, "Will I be rich and famous? Will I be a star?" Fame may come without much
planetary strength in one's Sixth house – as in cases of 'overnight' success based on superficial
traits like appearance or personality. Nor does mere fame necessarily require much talent or
effort. Sleeping with the right people can do the trick.
Renown is indicated by Ninth and Tenth house factors. But the Sixth absolutely supports
longevity and excellence in a given field. Saturn here can be a powerful indication favoring the
discipline, effort and self-involvement necessary to achieve rarefied heights combining talent,
skill, practice, technical expertise, determination to surmount every obstacle (there will be
many, with this position) and perfectionism. If everything else suffers – love and romance,
marriage and family, children and friends, sometimes even psychological or physical health – so
what? says this Saturn. Reaching and sustaining professional peaks are, without question or
pause, worth it all.
Individuation is the reward promised those who undertake honest responsible assessment and
conscious understanding of their Sixth house Saturn archetype. The process may take most or all
of a lifetime; the layers of Saturn's significance in horoscopes go much deeper than can ever be
realized without years of self-awareness, self-integration and genuine ongoing effort. Saturn
never rewards superficiality. Its revelations are an endless upward spiral of ever greater
insights, realizations and rewards.
If Saturn represents one's cross to bear, it also offers the only true path to self-resurrection. It's
the closest we can ever come to eternal life on Earth, which is measured solely by the legacy we
leave in hearts and minds of all who follow.
 Outer Planets in the Sixth House

Unless astrologers wish to limit discussion of the Sixth house to fairly superficial discussions of
'work, occupation and health,' it should be obvious that in-depth analysis of this house with
clients cannot be undertaken lightly. It immediately requires a great deal of study outside
astrology (e.g., psychology, vocational counseling, health and nutrition, alternative healing),
training and experience to avoid treading on sensitive subjects which the astrologer is
unprepared to handle effectively.
One way to remain true to astrology's depths even without much familiarity with subjects like
psychology (which really is essential for professional astrological practice) is to consistently
use conditional words like "suggests" " might," " perhaps," "maybe" and so on; and to ask
questions rather than issue flat statements.
"Your chart suggests you might have had some difficult and emotional experiences involving
your family, perhaps your parents or your father figure especially, around your age sixteen, that
have had a lasting impact on your attitudes about love and marriage. Does that make any sense
to you?"
As often as not, the client will share those events with the astrologer, who may then proceed.
"Can you see how that might set up certain unconscious expectations for what a romance or a
marriage means for you? Because it's natural to assume that all marriages are like your parents'
relationship, when that's all you've seen."
Or, "You know, many people with this configuration have problems with alcohol, or drugs, or
promiscuity. Is any of that true for you?"
As long as sensitive topics are phrased as questions, the client has a safe escape if they wish.
They can deny it – and they may be telling the truth. In the question about alcohol, drugs or
promiscuity, for instance, an astrologer might follow up their honest denial with another
question: "Then let me ask if you've ever found yourself involved with a romantic partner who
has problems with those things?"
If their answer is yes, then the door is open to explore how the phenomenon of projection works.
A blanket escape valve I always offer at the beginning of an initial session with clients, while
explaining what astrology is and is not, and my approach to it, is: "Some of what I see in your
chart may not make sense or even be accurate. I can be wrong. So don't hesitate to tell me if
something sounds off. It may be that it will make sense to you later on after you've thought about
it. Or it may simply be my mistake. There is nothing inevitable or fated about astrology."
In fact, there is, or can be: but there's no point spending an hour discussing the metaphysical
ramifications of that when the client wants to know when they will find a job and my goal is not
to tell fortunes but to illuminate predispositions, alternatives, choices and timing through
conscious awareness.
Identifying timing is one reason I continually ask questions about the more or less recent past as I
notice transiting aspects to natal positions: to 'test the grain' of a chart in Marc Edmund Jones'
phrase.
The event I ask about may have no direct bearing on the question at hand, but my question and the
client's response provide valuable information about how specifically they may or may not
respond to that particular transit. As often as not, such questions provoke a startled, "Why, yes!"
As noted in "The Practice of Astrology," such questions serve a twofold purpose: they let the
client know that I know what I'm doing, and they validate astrology for the client.
The Outer Planets offer another significant variance from analytical psychology. Though Jung
certainly understood the collective unconscious and individual psychology, and though all
archetypes are collective to greater or lesser degree, astrology makes a definite distinction
between Personal Planets and Outer Planets, with Saturn's archetype bridging the gap and
embodying elements of both.
Primarily, the distinction is derived from the time required for a planet to completely orbit the
Sun. Mercury and Venus are closer to the Sun and inside Earth's orbit. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are farther from the Sun and outside Earth's orbit. The time spent by a
planet in one sign varies according to its position in the solar system and also to the phenomenon
of retrogradation, when its position from Earth's perspective appears to temporarily move
backward because Earth's orbit gets ahead of the planet's.
Thus Mercury, which takes about 116 days to complete its orbit, spends about one year to travel
through the signs, from Earth's perspective, because of apparent retrogradation. Saturn spends
about 2½ years in one sign; Uranus about 7 years per sign.
The further a planet is from the Sun, the longer its orbit and greater the length of time it spends in
one sign, thus becoming a generational planet since everybody born during, say, those seven
years will have Uranus in the same sign (though in different aspects to the other archetypes).
The synchronous qualities represented by planetary archetypes are increasingly collective the
farther from the Sun they are since they take much longer than Earth to complete their full orbit.
Analytical psychology has no means for saying this archetype is more collective than that
archetype. Only astrology proposes such a distinction – then extends the concept still further by
graphically depicting how the more personal archetypes (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars)
relate harmoniously or stressfully to the more collective archetypes (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto)
in the psyche.
Saturn is unique in astrology (and in its archetypal role in the psyche). It is both personal and
collective. Its transiting orbit through the signs and houses affords one of astrology's most
reliable timing methods for analyzing cycles of the psyche's awareness and growth and the
psyche's synchronicity with external situations and events.
When it comes to the collective planetary archetypes beyond the personal planets and Saturn's
orbit – the Outer Planets – and how those energies manifest in the psyche, it's essential to
consider whether or not they have direct ties to the Personal Planets and Points (the Sun, Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ascendant and Midheaven) by close aspects.
If they don't, then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto may indeed represent areas of the psyche that
apparently operate as Fate; apart from an individual's conscious awareness or seeming control.
Another essential for understanding the Outer Planets in horoscopes is their role in generational
characteristics and an era's collective identity with social, political, religious, economic, artistic
and scientific evolution – and epidemics, pandemics and wars. The Dark Ages. The Plague. The
Inquisition. The Protestant Reformation. The Age of Enlightenment. The Industrial Revolution.
The Roaring Twenties. The Third Reich. World Wars. The Hippies.
Such collective experiences and movements throughout history affect everybody, but in different
ways. An individual may be directly impacted, or only peripherally involved. Some will lose
everything or die while others profit and conquer. Some escape through migration, others are
sent to concentration camps. Some see no way out (Fate) while others determine to find
solutions (Free Will) and survive.
Mundane Astrology concerns itself primarily with these collective synchronicities of the planets
and generational events on Earth. The subject is vast, fascinating, important and has yielded
entire books since astrology's earliest days – when rulers' horoscopes were virtually the
horoscopes of states and nations.
In individuals' horoscopes, the first assessment of Outer Planets concerns their aspects (or lack
of them) to Personal Planets and Points. Each of us embodies all the planetary archetypes in our
psyches, and another of astrology's immense gifts is its ability to make the collective archetypes
and their meanings in an individual's chart more conscious.
People who distinguish themselves and achieve 'stardom' in any field – including but hardly
limited to celebrities, politicians and world leaders in the arts, sciences or commerce – often
have horoscopes that clearly depict how they embody collective archetypes for their generation
and beyond. That's one reason studying horoscopes of contemporary and historic public figures
is worthwhile.
'Larger than life' personalities have links to the archetypes of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto that
elevate them far above humanity's average in achievements or notoriety, so that these collective
archetypes can be a blessing and / or curse depending on how they're understood (or not) and
utilized.
The Outer Planets represent collective rather than personal archetypes. If completely
unconscious, they are often difficult to integrate and express in fully positive ways, resulting in
unconscious negative behavior and outcomes. Those often take the form of difficulty or failure to
'fit in' in some significant with the group or one's peers.
When the Outer Planets are found in the Sixth house of psychological self-integration, there is
always the opportunity for the individual to become a representative of the planet(s)' collective
meaning for their generation and era, to greater or lesser degree. Even when such people never
travel farther than a hundred miles from their birth place, they're still known locally for being
'different' in ways that correspond to the Outer Planet they personify, for good or ill.
It is evident that those with Outer Planets in the Sixth live, to greater or lesser extent, in a
different reality and state of awareness than those who do not. Metaphysicians are fond of
talking about one's 'higher' consciousness and in fact those whose psychological self-integration
is dominated by Outer Planets' archetypes actually do perceive and respond to larger tangible
and intangible collective forces.
When unconscious or misunderstood, the Outer Planets' archetypes can pose real threats to
sanity. The stereotypes of the mad genius or tortured artist are rooted in a great truth if the self is
perceived to be at the mercy of vast impersonal thoughts and feelings that cannot be contained or
controlled, or which must be 'obeyed.'
Great actors, writers, painters, sculptors, scientists and philosophers can temporarily lose
themselves completely in their work without fear of literally losing themselves in insanity. They
understand and welcome the process and the 'higher' awareness involved.
For others, however – and this may be indicated by hard aspects to the Outer Planets from
Personal Planets – 'higher' collective consciousness can interfere with pragmatic mundane
realities shown by those Personal Planets in conflict – including daily relationships, the ability
to earn a living or take care of oneself. If alcohol or drugs are added to the mix, with time grave
dangers may result.
While alcohol and other drugs, natural and artificial, have been used since the dawn of time to
lower barriers of inhibitions and induce altered states of consciousness, perhaps the gateways
they open up are ultimately meant to be sought and explored without those substances, or their
sparing use. Addictions (Neptune) can pose real risks that eventually so contaminate the mind,
self, talents and body that that Neptune's metaphorical "death by drowning" becomes literal and
all is lost in delirium, madness and 'possession'. Yet the demons, like the gods, come from
within, not without.

Uranus in the Sixth House

Since its discovery in 1781 – or rather, its acceptance as a planet: it had been noted much
earlier but mistaken for a star or comet – astrologers have considered Uranus the 'ruler' of
Aquarius and of astrology itself. So Uranus' position in the Sixth house is one of several
signatures of a professional astrologer (as any planet in the Sixth is a prominent characterization
of a person's work and career).
In the physical body, Uranus is associated with both the circulatory system (Aquarius, opposite
Leo of the heart pump) and nervous system (also Aquarius); its energy with electromagnetic
properties and functions in the body, and with spasm. Thus Uranus correlates with accidents,
spinal cord injuries and diseases, certain disorders of the nervous system, multiple sclerosis
(shared with Neptune, as are other autoimmune disorders affecting the central nervous system),
ALS ("Lou Gehrig's disease"), strokes, seizures, epilepsy, palsy, Parkinson's, arrhythmia.
Before jumping to the conclusion that anyone or everyone with Uranus in the Sixth will be
predisposed to any or all those conditions, that's simply untrue. Like all planetary placements in
astrology, the archetypes simply say, in effect, "Look here. Study this from all perspectives."
Several other factors must always be included in analyzing diseases in astrology.
Illnesses in astrology are synchronous with illnesses in the body. Some arise from external
causes like infections, viruses, pollution, poisons, contaminants, etc. Others are genetically
determined. Some genetic conditions are virtually guaranteed to eventuate: other genetic
conditions may be present yet never eventuate despite individuals carrying their markers.
For most astrologers, a simple awareness of the sign rulerships of organs and body parts and the
planets' various energy types and functions is sufficient for an overview of a client's potential
weak spots or predispositions to illness or injury.
It is possible to go much deeper and be quite specific, depending on an astrologer's detailed
knowledge of general medicine and the functional origins of particular diseases – or the
physician's knowledge of astrology. Though that fact seems to shatter the possibility of Free Will
and suggests that astrology is indeed fatalistic, it must be repeated that such is not the case and
both exist. Astrology offers probabilities, not inevitabilities.
Certain cancers, at present levels of medical diagnosis and available treatment, are inevitably
fatal. Others are quite treatable if caught early enough. Even AIDS, once an inevitable death
sentence, is now manageable – for those able to afford and receive current levels of care and
treatment. Conditions like multiple sclerosis can manifest quite differently in different
individuals, resulting in completely different prognoses.
Astrology, remarkably, can suggest those variances from individual to individual.
Here is how it works in practice.
Let's say a client has Uranus in the Sixth house in Leo (heart and circulation, by reflex with
Aquarius, the opposite sign). That might be all it takes for an astrologer to inquire if there is a
history of circulatory or cardiac disease in the family, perhaps especially on the father's side
(masculine planet, masculine sign).
But it's hardly enough. Are there hard aspects to that Uranus? How close are they? From what
planets (what other physiological energy processes impact Uranus in Leo)? Inflammatory?
Acidic? Alkaline? Electromagnetic? Biochemical? Chronic? Acute? Spasmodic? Acting on the
nerves and nervous system? The muscles? Both? Are suggestions of overindulgence in food or
alcoholism indicated? Obesity? Anorexia? Blood pressure problems? Potential thyroid
problems? The thyroid is ruled by Taurus, which is on the same Fixed Cross with Leo, Scorpio
and Aquarius – and all organs and processes associated with those signs reflexively affect one
another. Straining during bowel movements (Scorpio) increases pressure in the chest, slowing
the return of blood to the heart, and can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Astrological indicators of
atherosclerosis? Are they linked to that Uranus in Leo?
Organic interconnectedness was depicted by ancient astrological archetypes long before
Hippocrates prescribed studying the stars; long before centuries of dissected corpses and
growing anatomical and organic knowledge in medicine and chemistry identified and understood
organic functions; long before Pluto (contemporary ruler of Scorpio) was discovered (Mars is
Scorpio's ancient Chaldean ruler). Pre-existence is the essence of archetypes. Pi, the Golden
Mean and every archetype in physics – as yet discovered or not – pre-existed man's
understanding of mathematics, astronomy and physics.
The Sixth house is hardly the only place to look in horoscopes for indications of health and
disease, though traditionally associated with those matters. The Eighth house is another. It has
the same inconjunct (150º) aspect to the Ascendant (physical body) as the Sixth house. The
Twelfth house is another. By reflex with the Sixth, so are the Third and Ninth houses (the Cadent
Cross). So are hard aspects in general.
Those same areas also affect psychological self-integration and health, again by reflex action.
These deeper and more complex interactions in horoscopes are why cookbook definitions are
inevitably simplistic and misleading. Like the Sixth house itself, they can be a good place to start
but they don't begin to depict the entire picture.
Uranus is popularly linked with anything unusual, unexpected, out of the ordinary or sudden –
including outer events or internal conditions, physiological and psychological disorders –
anything contradictory, controversial, or defined as breaking, severing or separating. It is
frequently prominent in charts during births (mutual separation of mother and baby) and
divorces; during scientific or creative breakthroughs, sudden enlightenment and rapid
technological developments (particularly electromagnetics).
Doctors like Michael Greicius, medical director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders,
are looking into potentials for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines in brain
scans to identify disorders like depression, autism or schizophrenia, much like EKGs can detect
potential problems in heart function. Promising evidence suggests it may be possible to detect
when communication between brain regions is out of sync or varies from the norm. Ultimately,
say scientists, various mental disorders may provide visual fingerprints for such conditions,
providing better diagnosis of neurological or developmental diseases and also tracking how
well patients respond to treatment. All that is an example of Uranus' archetype manifesting though
the human psyche.
The archetypes of Saturn and Uranus represent equally necessary energies, simplistically
identified as conserving and liberating. Or, politically, conservative and liberal.
Saturn's energy in the psyche forms structures, rules, boundaries, defenses, protections –
especially in the realm of physical matter but also psychologically – and conserves traditions
across time. Saturn makes permanent and resists change.
Uranus' energy in the psyche liberates, especially mentally but also in physical matter: it breaks
through and breaks free. It shocks, jolts, surprises, revolts, overturns, revolutionizes, riots,
invents and gives birth. It upsets stasis.
Both are necessary and exist in a continually dynamic balance that shifts toward one or the other
and back again over time. Those two planets' archetypes underlie the infamous "seven year itch"
and seven year cycle of collective pendulum swings. Saturn takes seven years to square its
starting position (at the birth of a person, corporation, election or event): Uranus seven years to
travel one sign. Fortunes are made knowing only those two cycles plus Jupiter's transit (refined
by knowledge of Mars' position for acting).
Too much Saturn yields internal and external totalitarianism, authoritarian rigidity, legislation
and military enforcement of traditional tribal fears, hatreds, dogma and conformity. Too much
Uranus produces chaos and upheaval, where nothing exists but to be uprooted, overturned or
blasted to smithereens.
When supported by rationality and shaped and controlled by objective facts and science, both
archetypes express constructively. When fueled by ignorance, superstition and fear, they're
equally destructive in their own ways.
Uranus (along with Neptune and Pluto) was or is long-held to be one astrological indicator of
potential homosexuality and other 'perversions' – a loaded word commonly applied to any
sexual expression beyond the agreed-upon averages or 'norms,' whether pathological (rape,
pedophilia, necrophilia) or not.
The term "homosexuality" was coined in the late 19th century by German psychologist Karoly
Maria Benkert. But homosexual practices have existed in societies since ancient times. Plato,
Aristophanes and many others wrote of them. But the concept of an exclusively heterosexual or
homosexual 'orientation' is relatively recent.
Homosexuality and heterosexuality are considered in most scientific circles a normal range of
behavioral dichotomies throughout nature. Canadian biologist, Bruce Bagemihl, author of
"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" (2000), cites
exhaustive studies and documentation of homosexuality in more than 300 species: not mere
homosexual behaviors, but lifelong same-sex pairings among diverse species including giraffes,
elephants, whales, etc.
Given voluminous factual data to the contrary, those claiming homosexuality is "against nature"
are either ignorant or lying. But that's the reality of any considerations of homosexuality: what it
is, what it's called, whether it's accepted or rejected, all depend on the historic and cultural
milieu. Same-sex love has been variously censured and approved throughout history.
For much of history, little thought or attention was paid to lesbianism: most of the focus was on
males. Sappho, the poetess of ancient Greece who wrote love poems to other women and lived
on the isle of Lesbos, is the earliest and most famous lesbian. But the patriarchal Abrahamic
religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have concentrated their denunciations almost
exclusively on males.
Even within accepting cultures, however, the idea of homosexual 'orientation' didn't exist. There
were simply homosexual behaviors among otherwise heterosexual males. Pederasty (adult males
with adolescent males), like all sexuality in ancient times, had distinct rules, class roles (nobles
versus slaves or youths or common men) and even accepted sexual behaviors depending on
status (penetrating versus receiving).
American troops stationed in the Middle East are startled to be propositioned by Arabic men,
commonly seen strolling streets holding hands. "We have no homosexuals," proclaims the
leadership of Iran and Egypt. "We have no homosexual problem here. It is a western problem."
They're telling the truth, although equality for their LGBT citizens has emerged openly in recent
years, largely due to television, smartphones and the internet. Taboos, religious and social
conditioning, as always, shape belief systems.
An old saying in the Middle East makes their reality clear: "Men are for pleasure; women are
for babies." Thus most men of the region, all but the most effeminate, identify as heterosexual,
though homosexual activities are common and falling in love with another man certainly existed
long before Persian philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam (1048 –
1131) wrote the Rubaiyat. (Edward FitzGerald's famous 19th Century translation is considered
so loose, by many, as to be a separate work of poetry.) Despite his celebrations of male same-
sex love, Khayyam was not and could not be considered "homosexual" by contemporary
definitions: the identity didn't exist.
Among its other names, homosexuality was once labeled "Uranian" and "contrarian," which
point directly to its archetypal astrological link with Uranus. Beginning in the second half of the
20th Century and continuing its evolution today, homosexual "orientation" began to be accepted
as a possibility. It was only removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental
disorders in 1973. It was previously believed to be pathological.
All this is to remind us that sexuality in all forms has always been defined within changing
social and religious contexts, rather than viewed objectively – until recently.
Even today, as scientists pursue discovery of a gene or other biological determinants for
homosexuality, it appears it's nowhere near that simple. "Born that way?" Maybe, in some cases.
A "preference?" Maybe, in some cases. A complex interaction of biological and social
conditioning? Certainly.
Astrology no more answers these intricate questions than does medical science or psychiatry.
But astrology does show the probability of an individual having 'problems' with sexual
expression, or not, and can often reveal a great amount of specific information about those,
though whether the individual acknowledges them honestly or not is moot.
To the degree homosexuality represents sexuality that is 'different' or 'contrary' or 'unusual' and
Neptune represents 'secrets,' and Pluto 'extremes' (all valid interpretations), the association of
those archetypes may indeed point to potentials for homosexuality in charts. But they may also
point to many other possibilities for sexual 'differences' from the statistical average, including
authentic bisexuality, asexuality, sexual revulsion or phobias, sado-masochism, sex addiction,
pedophilia, sexual violence or abuse – et al.
If Uranus, Neptune or Pluto are connected with archetypes of sexuality in horoscopes
(particularly the Fifth house, its ruler and planets in the Fifth; the Sun, Moon, Venus or Mars; the
Eighth house, its ruler and planets in the Eighth) all an astrologer may truthfully explore is the
possibility that sex, in some capacity for that individual, may contain elements of 'difference,'
secrets, addiction or extremes to be explored. They can be further particularized depending on
the astrologer's more detailed understanding of archetypes for sexuality: but never quantified
through astrology alone. "A little bit gay" or "totally gay" are not necessarily or always clear.
Since the Sixth house represents overall psychological self-integration, and sexuality is a
primary component of the process, the Sixth too is of great importance in sexuality and sexual
expression (including love of, comfort with, problems concerning, or lack of it).
In practice, the astrological indicators for homosexuality vary tremendously. In some charts they
seem obvious. In others, not at all. The collective meanings of Outer Planet indicators can vary
from era to era and culture to culture in terms of recognizing and accepting homosexuality. Some
same-sex individuals have little or no trouble accepting themselves and finding locales and
careers in which openness is as taken-for-granted as heterosexuality. Others have tremendous
difficulty with same-sex orientation and behavior.
Still others are genuinely bisexual. Some express both heterosexuality and homosexuality during
different stages of life. Some are asexual.
There are many indicators for potential homosexuality in horoscopes. Everybody has two or
three. I like to see at least four and preferably five or more before introducing the topic. Even
then, the subject can be problematic.
Last year I was consulted by a young man from India who'd been studying at an Ivy League
university and wanted desperately to remain in the United States. He was about to graduate and
his student visa would end. He would have to apply for a permanent visa. His family in India
were determined that he return and marry there. It was all arranged. If he returned, he said, he
would have to marry – which he did not want to do. Yet his strong cultural tradition made it a
serious offense to disobey his parents' wishes for him.
I mentally tallied some 21 indications of homosexuality (unusually high) in his horoscope, but he
insisted he was heterosexual. He seemed unfazed by the question and wasn't in the least
defensive. I accepted his word, of course, and we continued pursuing avenues for him to remain
in the United States without offending his parents.
Because of his background and the reason for our consultation we never went into great depth
about his psychology. The topic of homosexuality is still highly taboo and controversial
throughout much of India, as is the notion of exploring personal psychology and sexuality –
compared with much of the west. The same is true for those from Middle Eastern and Asian
cultures and for anybody from backgrounds of fundamentalist religions (who rarely consult
astrologers in any case, unless they've already left such backgrounds).
I recall a client in the '80s in Los Angeles, a lesbian from Utah and a Mormon, whose family had
subjected her to everything from pharmaceuticals to electroshock treatments to 'cure' her, before
she finally left her family and religion, moved to Los Angeles and found love, happiness and
success owning several businesses.
Homosexuals in cities like Los Angeles and New York, even when closeted, generally have few
problems opening up with astrologers, given the confidentiality of the sessions.
All this is to acknowledge the variety of indicators of sexual orientations and their appearance in
horoscopes. There is no 'gay lifestyle' any more than there is a 'straight lifestyle.' Neither
orientation or position on the hetero-homo dichotomy says whether a person is happy or sad,
healthy or sick, successful or frustrated, a physician or homicidal maniac. The varieties of
sexuality are reflected in astrology exactly as in life itself: sometimes clearly, sometimes not.
What is usually clear in horoscopes is whether or not relationships and sex are 'problematic' or
not, along with potentials for addictive or perhaps even criminal behavior connected with them.
But those problems too may take many forms: from sexual assault (as victim or perpetrator) to a
vengeful spouse of the same or opposite sex during a breakup, to infidelity, pregnancy outside
marriage, abortion, prostitution, etc.
What makes such issues important in astrology is the presence of the Outer Planets in connection
with them, since they often correspond to manifestations of much greater than ordinary
significance and potential for harm to the psyche if buried and unexplored.
The safest and most productive approach again lies in neutral and conditional questioning –
using words like "maybe," "might," "suggests," etc. – to open such doors for discussion. If the
client is receptive, they can be pursued in constructive depth. If not, then dropped.
Toward the end of an hour-long session several years ago with a male physician who was
concerned about his marriage, his practice and the advisability of relocating, I mentioned that his
chart indicated the possibility that he had been sexually abused when he was ten.
"I don't want to talk about that."
"That's fine," I said. "We don't have to. But at some point it would be a good idea if you saw a
psychologist to process all that. Because it's affecting your marriage and even your medical
practice and where you live. On one level, this idea about relocating to another part of the
country is really an attempt to escape the buildup of pressures in your marriage. You hope that
maybe the new location – or having a child – will mean a new start for the two of you and make
everything all right. But the underlying stresses in your marriage aren't going to go away. And in
many ways they all stem from what happened to you at ten."
He finally took a deep breath and only nodded.
When the Outer Planets are in the Sixth house (along with some other configurations) there is
always the necessity to look for relatively major psychological functions that have great
significance throughout the life.
Outer Planets here may also (with harmonious aspects) be life-altering and affirming through
peak experiences and in foundational ways. An important teacher or mentor, say. A trip that
completely changes one's perspectives and goals. An accident or surgery during which an out-of-
body experience occurs. A sudden inheritance that makes it possible to pursue an otherwise
unattainable dream. The birth of a child. The start of a business. A career breakthrough.
Uranus' energy in the psyche is fundamentally separative (from what's preceded its emergence)
and barrier-breaking (through what's held it back). It's also rapid: seemingly overnight or
instantaneous. Uranus unconsciously – lightning-fast – assesses every moment and situation, then
seeks to personally distinguish itself from it, constructively or not. It continually identifies with
what is not: what is not like everybody else. Thus it's ever open to the new, untried and
experimental. Uranus is a free agent and behaves like one. "Expect the unexpected," was coined
for it. So was, "Expect a miracle."
Uranus’s position can reflect rebellion, separativeness, non-conformity, argumentativeness,
instability, unpredictability, erratic behavior, eruptions, explosiveness, sudden self-destructive
choices and behaviors (a component of suicide). Positively, it can denote magnetism, charm,
originality, creativity, independence, freedom, breakthroughs, mental and intellectual
exhilaration, inventiveness, distinction and collective recognition.
In the Sixth house, Uranus often signifies potentials for an important, sudden, even dramatic
breakthrough in the psyche at the age corresponding to its degree (or multiples of it). Though that
may manifest as an internal 'breakdown' of some kind, or an external 'breakup' in some form, it
ultimately becomes viewed as a positive life-changing 'breakthrough' experience that turns
one's direction toward an entirely new, revitalizing perspective.
Uranus is the antithesis of intimacy, joining, or uniting – except in the collective sense: it is
about freedom and independence. It rejects tradition and restraint, seeking excitement,
disruption, originality, creativity and inventiveness. The Divine Rebel, it's been dubbed. It
always functions to individualize and distinguish itself. These qualities assume great importance
in psychological self-integration – and therefore in the work and careers chosen by these people.
They want to make a personal, individual mark on the collective even if they never leave
Podunk. Conformity is anathema.
Creativity may be pronounced. Uranus, as already noted, is often prominent in literal births, but
that applies figuratively as well. Uranus' glyph has been described as a pictograph of a woman
squatting to bear a child, though its archetype is considered masculine or neutral rather than
feminine (again acknowledging its ambisexual or pansexual universality). It is also considered
one of the indicators of 'genius,' primarily because its innately fearless explorative nature (unlike
Jupiter's propriety-loving and impressionable qualities) can be light-years ahead of others and
lead to breakthroughs in any field.
A large part of Uranus' challenge in the Sixth is to discover and honor one's inherent 'genius,'
whatever it is; to make it conscious and develop it. Uranus is unafraid to go it alone (in fact,
prefers it to large degree).
Because Uranus' energy fights restrictions, traditions and conformity, in the Sixth house it often
formulates a psychology of self-integration that demands it break with and separate from its birth
place, home and family conditioning – in ways that are creative, distinct, different, intellectual
and communicative. Or the individual may become extremely frustrated, disruptive and self-
destructive if she or he is forced by circumstances (or never learns how) to conform (Saturn) to
collective mores and pressures.
Hence Uranus' notorious configuration in suicide: a self so detached from itself and others,
seemingly so trapped and optionless, unable to break out or see ahead, that (directly or
indirectly) it rebels against its own life. What often appears sudden or impulsive has actually
been building a long time. "Your future is all used up," says Marlene Dietrich as Tanya the
fortune-teller in Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil." Uranus energy lives in the future. If it no longer
sees anything there, it's time to go.
One aspect of suicide oft-noted is selfishness, an important Uranian characteristic of this notably
altruistic and humanitarian sign. Consistent with Uranus' crazy-making potentials, it can be
remarkably generous and active in causes benefiting the collective welfare, yet maddeningly
selfish and even cruel personally. That can apply to its relationship with itself: i.e., suicide.
It's true that personal situations of health or finances or romance may be so traumatizing that it
feels impossible to continue living. Yet it is rarely if ever true that there is nobody or no group
available to offer genuine caring and avenues of support. If in fact that is so, an honest
assessment usually shows such Uranian types have effectively pushed everybody away, refused
their best intentions, and isolated themselves: selfishness carried to extremes. Unsurprising,
then, that survivors – the suicide's friends and loved ones – commonly report feeling anger.
Obviously, these are always to be distinguished from assisted suicides that are humanely sought
by those facing only further physical deterioration and pain. As with most everything else,
suicide comes in many forms, which are reflected in horoscopes. People can treat beloved pets
with more compassion and respect than terminally ill fellow humans
Negatively, Uranus' energy in the Sixth can be rebellious; argumentative for argument’s sake;
unpredictable and unreliable; unfaithful to others and to itself, its talents and commitments;
controversial for controversy’s sake, and so on. Uranus is the ancient God of Chaos, which is
one temporary result of explosive acts by terrorists and suicide-bombers – and of volcanic
eruptions and meteor collisions in nature. Or the words, "I'm leaving you," in marriages. Chaos
erupts to throw all the cards in the air; they fall to earth where they may, in new patterns.
Positively expressed through psychological self-integration and the Sixth house, Uranus' need to
be free and independent, to be different and distinguish itself, will be expressed through work
and occupational choices. Those often contain scientific or technological elements, at which
these types can excel, as well as mass communications and media, and careers or hobbies
involving technology or machines – such as photography, computers, planes, trains, automobiles,
motorcycles, satellites, engineering, aviation, electronics and machinery. If drawn to careers in
the military or law enforcement, which they may be because of the inherent danger and
excitement, they make better officers than troops, but are always a bit of the rogue since strict
regimentation and conformity to rules fundamentally threatens Uranus.
Uranus' energy is essentially at home in the Thinking (Air sign) function; secondarily in the
Intuitive (Fire sign) function. It is primarily mental and electromagnetic, in contrast with Neptune
which is emotional and biochemical. These distinctions are often evident in the types of health
issues dealt with by those with one or the other planet in the Sixth. So fundamental is Uranus'
detachment that they may unwittingly neglect their own health or engage in pursuits that place
them at risk. "Boys will be boys," and "Girls just want to have fun," they'll laugh while courting
thrills and danger.
This type of psychological energy usually carries a great deal of magnetism, charm, charisma
and humor that others find hugely attractive. Yet it's ultimately difficult to get close to.
Successful marriage for this type requires lots of space and zero possessiveness or jealousy.
Ironically, those who are jealous and possessive are drawn like moths to Uranus' flames. "I can
tame her." "He'll settle down with me." "I can make him straight." They always lose, though
Uranus is not to blame.
Uranus' inherent yearning for freedom, experimentation and stimulation can lead to separations,
divorce, and infidelity. There are also Uranian types who are so remote, 'scientific' and detached
that they seem cold or even ruthless and cruel. At its most extreme (with close hard aspects), this
position can be one indication of a true sociopath or psychopath completely lacking in emotional
affect.
At its best, however, Uranus in the Sixth house is the different drummer who marches to its own
band and makes its own special music. Whatever its shortcomings at home and hearthside, it
constructively turns people on, shakes them up, wakes them up, then moves on to its next
adventure – never intending harm, never seeking revenge, because it never wants to own or
manipulate anybody (and runs from those who try to possess or control it).
At its highest, these are angels on Earth who appear in people's lives and cry, "Awaken!"
delivering startling change and growth, then vanish – for whom the phrase, "Love with an open
hand," was coined.

Neptune in the Sixth House

Neptune is seductive; its approach subtle and indirect. What it implies and all that it means
dawns slowly . . . and infinitely.
The three Outer Planets – Uranus, Neptune and Pluto – represent wholly collective archetypes in
the psyche. Without aspects to the personal planets and points, they have no means of being
directly experienced individually and can only seem to operate apart from one's self, through
others and seemingly 'fated' situations and events outside one's creation or control.
But in fact, like everything else in life, their archetypes pre-exist individual births and do indeed
reside within psyches. The definitions and meanings we give to people, places, situations and
objects arise completely from pre-existing archetypes inside us. They are not imposed from
without.
Fortunately, when a wild beast roars as we approach, our instinctive archetype of fear triggers
an adrenaline flight response. Otherwise we might think the furry lion is cute, move to pet it and
be mauled for the pride's lunch.
The fight or flight response might be called instinct, but instincts themselves are pre-existing
archetypes.
Meanings that we attribute to sunrise, sunset, the sounds of the surf and the changing seasons are
also completely archetypal and arise from within. If we notice that plants grow in the presence
of light and water, and see that supplies of light and water vary from month to month, we say that
early spring is a good time to plant and autumn a good time to harvest. Light and water are
'good.' Darkness and drought are 'bad.' But only for us: for the Earth and Sun those conditions
simply are.
The same is true for what we are pleased to call the Gods or God. Those too are archetypes
arising from within the psyche, individually and collectively; not from without.
Inscriptions on stele like the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi or writings on animal skins
or papyrus may later be assembled and collated into 'sacred' books which arouse deep and
profound emotions. Their allegories and stories may become tribal faiths that bond and
ultimately expand to influence nations. But they are 'holy' ("Helios Biblos," "Holy Bible," "Book
of the Sun," "holistic") only because we say they are. Their power comes solely from the ideas
and feelings evoked by their archetypes inside us. Objectively, they remain mere stones, animal
skins and papyrus covered with man-made symbols.
The mountain tribe may construct its holy books (based on its inner archetypes) that differ from
the desert tribe's scriptures. Both tribes are equally enthralled with their Word of God – their
projected 'faith' – and wars may be fought over them. Though the battles are more truthfully over
land, resources and women (in patriarchal cultures), 'faith' is their great motivator and
justification.
The Word of God is man's outward tribal expression of its own sense of meaning and
understanding of pre-existing archetypes in the psyche.
'Good' and 'Evil' are whatever we agree they are. The fact unnerves many who are convinced
that meanings, values, laws, and definitions are imposed from on high by Gods or God,
personified in an external authority or authorities. But those meanings too are wholly internal
and projections of all-too-human self-anointed authorities.
Facts are external and objective, like that hungry lion or the orbits of planets around the Sun.
(Internal facts are inherently subjective and more fluid, by definition.) But the meanings we
attribute to objective facts and our responses to those meanings arise completely from within
human psyches.
If enough tribal members choose to agree on the collective meanings assigned to objective facts
and manifestations, perhaps a leader or leaders emerge to become the authority, or God's
representative on Earth. Still, to the degree they assume the role, it's only because the tribe
willingly projects those archetypes onto them. It's convenient and efficient for the group, whose
members no longer have to puzzle over everything starting from scratch at birth. Laws and
traditions are handed down from generation to generation until they're taken for granted –
accepted as facts.
But they aren't facts: they're beliefs about facts.
No rational mind argues that two plus two equals four or that e = mc2 or that Earth takes
365.2563666 mean solar days to orbit the Sun. Knowledge of those facts is incredibly valuable,
but 'good' or 'evil' interpretations aren't assigned them: only to some of their observed results
like rain or drought.
Tribes have argued and warred over Gods and God since Day One, on the other hand: possibly
(perhaps inevitably) because the Neptunian concept of spirituality is subjective and internal, not
objective and external. 'Holiness' is a human projection of certain pre-existing archetypes in the
psyche, as 'Evil' is; as Gods and Devils are.
When Popes or paupers inform us about God, they're telling us about themselves, cloaked in
millennia of 'tradition.'
The ancient notion that all meanings in life are projections of archetypes from within our own
psyches (Plato) is profoundly disturbing to those who've been taught to believe that human
beings are inherently amoral or evil from birth and must be tamed and controlled. We accept that
man-made laws that punish and protect against acts like murder, rape, theft and so on are
required to protect the good of all against the selfishness or psychopathology of some, without
necessarily attributing demons to such crimes.
Yet societies eagerly assign demonic or evil forces to mere acts of interfaith or interracial love,
for instance, or to women and their physicians deciding to terminate a pregnancy for medically
sound reasons, or to entire races and religions – demonic Others.
Nowhere is the principle that our beliefs create our realities so abundantly evident as in
collective phenomena like ignorance (when education is readily available), bigotry, politics,
economies, religions, wars, pollution, et al.
"God gave us this land."
"No, Allah gave US this land."
Trillions are annually spent on weaponry and troops devoted to what are essentially tribal turf
wars justified by projections of archetypal beliefs.
They may, in fact, end civilization. They've steadily imperiled it since cavemen.
As we near the close of this book, we finally reach Neptune's archetype in the psyche and
Neptune's association with Pisces, the archetype of the Two Fishes swimming in opposite
directions with opposite ends of a connecting line hooked in their mouths; the Duality of
Knowledge of Good and Evil, for metaphysicians; the Pisces (fish) in Chartres' stained glass
windows and on cars' bumpers; the symbol for Christianity's archetypes of sin and redemption,
sacrifice and crucifixion (the Sun-God's crossification at the four points of the solstices and
equinoxes), death and resurrection.
Certainly, Pisces' fish archetype long pre-existed Christianity. The sign's original Chaldean
planetary ruler was Jupiter, law-giver and significator of lawyers, religious leaders and
religious dogma, and physicians, among other things, since astrology's antiquity.
It's fascinating and enlightening to trace the emergence of religions coinciding with the
precession of the equinoxes and the Great Ages of Taurus, Aries and Pisces – synchronous with
the religions of Baal (the Bull), Judaism (the Ram) and Christianity (the Fish). Fascinating but
beyond the focus of this book.
Neptune's archetype in the Sixth house of psychological self-integration nevertheless contains
not just those concepts of duality, sacrifice, sin and redemption, death and resurrection, but much
more.
Neptune's energy in the psyche, the body and external reality is to dissolve – slowly, inexorably
– all boundaries. Superficially, that's terrifying, for boundaries (another archetype) include all
definitions, meanings, structures, inhibitions, controls and physical matter.
A 1963 cheapie exploitation sci-fi thriller called "The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" starred Ray
Milland as Dr. James Xavier, who experiments with eye drops allowing him to see through
things. It turns harrowing when he can't stop progressively seeing deeper and deeper past surface
appearances, through matter and finally atomic structures to – pure light with no boundaries! The
movie's premise is exactly Neptune's archetype shot on a potboiler back lot budget.
Dr. Xavier: "I'm blind to all but a tenth of the universe."
Dr. Brant: "My dear friend, only the gods see everything."
Dr. Xavier: "My dear doctor, I'm closing in on the gods."
If Uranus shatters barriers and boundaries in the psyche, Neptune erodes. If Uranus delivers
new births in the psyche, Neptune resurrects. The two archetypes are quite distinct. Uranus is
obvious, Neptune subtle. The new life of Uranus breaks with the past; Neptune dissolves layer
after layer to reveal a deeper understanding that resurrects, biochemically transforms then builds
on what was thought lost. Uranus effects change through explosive chaos (seen as good by some,
bad by others); Neptune through a sea-change (also subjectively defined as good or bad).
Neptune's energies underlie all concepts of faith and trust . . . and the slow but inevitable
changes that occur over time and with human imperfections, often interpreted as betrayal and
loss, challenging us to see through them by discovering ever deeper worth and meaning – or not.
Thus Neptune's notorious negative associations with deception, deceit, lies, betrayal, totally
convincing con artists, frauds and actors. Don't tell Meryl Streep or Daniel Day-Lewis, but the
archetypes are the same though the motivations differ.
Neptune's destructive associations extend to alcohol, recreational drugs, medications, poisons,
infections, viruses and bacteria, germs, contamination, pollution and gases. Certain drugs, gases
and chemicals are seductive because they initially dissolve inhibitions and boundaries to induce
an artificial joy in 'seeing through' constraints and inhibitions; only later producing addictions,
dependency, loss of self and even death.
Neptune's essential 'dissolving' archetype is fundamentally about rediscovering an emotional
collective unity with all life: ecstasy, if you will. That search underlies and motivates all
recreational (and spiritual) use of drugs: to dissolve the sense of separateness and enhance
awareness of unity and belonging. The problem, ultimately, is that the apparent release from
'separateness' is found externally (through a substance or an 'authority') rather than internally.
Dependence and addictions result. Alcoholics Anonymous attempts to recognize the spiritual
dimension of addiction in one of its 12 Steps requiring 'surrender' (another Neptune archetype)
to a 'higher power.'
Revealed religions can operate in exactly the same way: promising eternal salvation and streets
paved with gold; slowly becoming as addictive and destructive to selves and civilizations as
alcohol or other drugs. Typically with Neptune, one's own cult is never at fault; only others'. The
powerful emotional, even ecstatic, sense of belonging found in religious groups remains
dependent on external stimuli, however: priests, rituals, holy books and dogmas. Direct personal
inner experience of the higher self, or 'God' or the 'All That Is', requires none of those just as
inner states of individual spiritual awareness and ecstasy require no chemicals (which in fact
ultimately prevent it, though they may initially open doors to it). So individual spiritual
awareness becomes threatening to the group or cult.
One of Neptune's most prominent associations? Secrets. Even beginning astrologers know to
look at Neptune in a chart and ask, "What are the secrets connected with Neptune's sign, house
and aspects?" Experienced astrologers know to proceed cautiously and sensitively. Yet there is
much value in the question and its answers, for astrologers and clients.
Self-deception is Neptune's greatest vice in the psyche. But self-deception may also be
something of a virtue since it's a fundamentally protective trait, even in criminals and
psychopaths – who are often notably good liars, if intelligent. They totally believe their lies –
almost.
In the Sixth house of psychological self-integration, Neptune's primary positive energy flows
toward an embracing compassion for the self: a healthy self-love and acceptance of one's human
mistakes that's forgiving and deeply, emotionally, understanding and ever loving.
With hard aspects to Neptune here, true self-forgiveness undergoes the sea-change and turns to
exaggerated self-love, narcissism, delusions of grandeur and invincibility – or the continual
erosion of self. An afflicted or stressed Neptune essentially cannot trust itself, much less others.
There is often an undermining of self-trust through early parental conditioning and their
behaviors which promotes the expectation that "that's how life is," "that's what love is."
Dysfunctional alcoholic families are stereotypically filled with negative Neptunian deceits,
avoidance of facts and deflecting personal responsibility for one's actions. These and similar
traits are often shared with religions, not surprisingly, also ruled by Neptune (and Jupiter; see
below for the distinction).
Since the treachery and pain cannot be acknowledged openly, various means of comfort and
relief are naturally sought – the most commonly available being to join the others in getting drunk
or high, or singing hymns and feeling superior to heretics and infidels.
When self-controlling limits and barriers are artificially dissolved through alcohol and drugs, or
religious fanaticism, buried anger and violence are often released, which is why alcohol (and
religious mania) plays such a prominent role in "crimes of passion."
With Neptune in the Sixth house of psychological self-integration, all those negative possibilities
and more create ever-present risks of adopting escapist behaviors and self-undermining habits to
anesthetize the pain and effort of self-awareness and responsibility.
Negatively, through hard aspects, Neptune here can establish psychological patterns that try to
get as much as possible for as little effort and maturity as possible, in the classic Neptune con
game. But the self knows it's a con and the gains aren't earned but essentially stolen under false
pretenses. Thus the stage may be set for a life of make-believe if not actual crime, with this
position.
The existential problem with con-artists, scammers and criminals is always reduced to the
negative Neptunian archetype of trying to "get something for nothing." Though it often appears,
on the surface, that criminals, bullies, thugs, crooks, thieves, embezzlers, et al. are powerful and
threatening, the seeds of their almost inevitable failure (or their descendants') is their actual core
belief in their own weakness and powerlessness.
They don't believe they can earn power legitimately, for any of scores of beliefs about
themselves. "I'm a victim because of my ____ (fill in the blank). Therefore I will lie, cheat,
steal, fight and kill my way to the top." Beneath the pseudo-egomania and swagger is the belief
that they're not talented enough, smart enough, educated enough, well-connected enough, or a
hundred and one other justifications they use to rationalize their crimes, petty or grand.
Every time a shoplifter steals something, the theft – no matter how small – reinforces their belief
that they don't have the cash to legitimately buy the item like everybody else. Getting by with
shoplifting can create a temporary adrenaline high that adds a literally addictive component to
the original belief in personal lack. Thus a false sense of strength and superiority can grow and
lead to larger thefts, greater risks, bigger highs – but simultaneously deepening the core belief in
weakness and lack.
In addition to the antisocial elements of stealing "something for nothing," there is the ultimately
devastating personal price to be paid every time one's belief in weakness and lack is affirmed
and reinforced.
Those same Neptunian undercurrents lie at the heart of all crimes against others, from stealing
music online to suicide-bomber attacks. Each incident affirms weakness and lack. Continued
long enough, or carried to extremes, eventual loss, capture, arrest, debilitating illness or death is
inevitable because the core belief in the self's own inherent power is what's ultimately stolen.
That, not 'fate,' is how Neptune's energy can function negatively in the psyche.
With negative expressions of Neptune, one also recognizes the constant undertow of sacrifice:
living in fantasy worlds and neglecting obligations; surrender of self, responsibility and maturity
to alcohol or drugs or cults; attempted gains without effort or through crime; poor or dangerous
choices in friends and lovers; risky sexual behaviors – the list goes as deep as the sea.
But the motive is always the same: escape from struggle, effort, pain, awareness, facts, maturity
and responsibility – from Saturn's archetype in the psyche. In the end, it's futile; impossible and
destructive because utterly unrealistic.
More particularly, those potentials will express through the house and sign matters where
Neptune is found (in this case, psychological self-integration); the house with Pisces on its cusp;
and through matters and houses ruled by planets in hard aspect with Neptune. But the
possibilities of enlightenment, rehabilitation and resurrection always exist through exactly those
same areas.
Since Neptune is associated with the immune system, contamination of all kinds – physical and
psychological – can weaken or wreck it. Astrologers know to suggest that attention be paid to
body parts ruled by Neptune's sign, and the parts of the body reflexively ruled by the other signs
in that same cross (Cardinal, Mutable or Fixed), because they are susceptible to substances and
habits that can react through allergies, infections or toxins (including toxic people).
Here too, as with all hard aspects involving astrology's archetypes, the battle is for something,
not against something: in Neptune's case, for refinement and greater emotional awareness,
insight and truth, not against fear of contamination or infection.
Positive emotional feelings and awareness, even elation, are produced by positive and
constructive experiences. The 'higher' awareness that is greater than the boundaries of outer
appearances offers enormous calm and security because it directly experiences the feeling of
belonging to everybody and everything: precisely the opposite of feeling threatened or fearful,
separate or alone.
Like attracts like. Those with Neptune in the Sixth who learn to coexist beyond appearances and
realize the psyche's awareness of unity with all around them never attract threats to begin with.
Should they happen by, threats too are perceived as projections from the self, not apart from it,
and no harm results.
That sounds like claptrap to those who deny the possibility of living it. For those who take the
time and make the effort to identify and experience it, however, it becomes second nature and the
only sane, productive, healthy and happy way to exist on earth amidst its infinite possibilities
and manifestations. It is the 'spiritual' consciousness promised but denied by extravert directed
(Jupiter-Sagittarian) religions constantly warring with 'non-believers'.
The Other is recognized as a living projection of timeless pre-existing archetypes as equally
valid as the self's own, no matter its skin color, nationality, religion, politics, gender, age,
economic status, sexual proclivities, condition of illness or health, what it eats, how it smells,
what it wears, how much it earns, where it lives or what it drives.
The world is full of people and organizations teaching and preaching it's not possible or
trustworthy for the psyche to recognize and experience Neptune's archetype of greater
consciousness; or it's dangerous, or something. Of course, they have the answers, for an ongoing
fee or tithe for their services; or for the far greater price of abandoning direct experience and
self-determination to their external dogma and secondhand revelations.
Neptune here can fall victim to all manner of cults, false prophets, gurus and snake oil salesmen
and saleswomen, some who're greatly respected by masses of followers; becoming as addicted
to them as alcoholics.
One Neptune phenomenon much demonized and derided is the concept of an internal 'psychic
guide' or 'higher self'. People are told to reject the experience for fear it leads to schizophrenia
or insanity but the truth is the opposite of mental illness. Welcoming the greater self, whether
personified as an internal personage or experienced and understood as the expanded self (they
are the same thing), is the Neptunian awareness lived by the Dalai Lama and millions of others
of any garb or nationality. It is not only possible; it's desirable.
Neptune is a watery archetype at home in Water signs and Feeling Types in analytical
psychology. At its highest it produces the ecstasy found in spiritual, humanitarian, scientific and
artistic expression. Sensitive to life's underdogs and naturally compassionate, this level of
Neptune revelation can devote its life to serving the collective through the arts, sciences,
humanities and spirituality.
Even then, however, Neptune's essentially dissolving energy can produce profound doubt and
infinite 'seeing through' all extravert definitions of self, the world and even of God – confessed
by the likes of saintly Mother Teresa.
It is essential to contrast the difference between Mother Teresa's eventual doubts about her 'faith'
in her beloved extravert Catholic dogma, and the introvert consciousness of the Dalai Lama,
which is personally and directly experienced rather than 'believed in' secondhand. The one
attempts to conform to rules of a 'revealed' religion (see Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason,"):
the other personally experiences higher or greater awareness without an external middleman.
Neptune's energy always and ultimately dissolves boundaries, dogmas, rules, definitions and
authorities. But direct inner experience of the greater self contains none to dissolve. Instead, it
offers ever greater awarenesses and meaningful connections experienced firsthand and lived
pragmatically inwardly and outwardly. It is not separate from external reality: it encompasses it.
Neptune's region of the psyche is the opposite of dissociation. It never loses touch with the
physical mind or body, or material relationships and responsibilities: it embraces them with the
greater self.
Perhaps the major telling characteristic that distinguishes authentic experience of the greater self
from dissociative or psychotic states is that the latter involve 'powerful' Not-Self entities
'directing' the individual. Pathological belief in the self's weakness is 'solved' by creating a
super powerful inner voice that sees all, knows all, and wages paranoid war against external
evildoers and schemers in high places, thus elevating the pathologically weak and frightened self
into roles of incredible (but delusional) strength.
None of that characterizes experience of the genuine greater self. There is no sense of heightened
'power,' only greater personal insight; no show-stopping quest meant to shock and awe others; no
theatrics.
Dwelling comfortably in full consciousness with the greater self produces calm and centered
psychological self-integration and personal effectiveness. It may, and often is, intuitively
recognized by others – even children – who gravitate toward it wide-eyed and smiling. It is
entirely personal, with nothing to prove and everything to discover.
To children, Neptune's realm is as real as the physical realm. One role of Saturn's archetype in
the psyche is learning to define and place mature practical boundaries around dreams,
nightmares, imaginings, visions and the inner intangible realities.
In adulthood, those same Neptunian realities remain available to artists, social and scientific
visionaries, spiritual leaders (as distinct from religious leaders, who are Jupiterian and
Saturnian). Or, when Neptune expresses pathologically in adults, absent Saturn's maturity and
boundaries, those psychic realities become schizophrenia, psychoses, phobias, hysteria,
delusions, panic attacks, superstitions and the like.
Though some mystics claim that all is illusion, true Neptunian realization is that everything is
real in different ways, on different levels, having meaning, significance and value. There is no
confusion in the greater self, instead absolute clarity about what is tangible and material, mental
and intellectual, spiritual and intuitive, and what lies beyond and encompasses all those and
more.
One simple basic introduction to experiencing the greater self, in contemporary times attributed
to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky though far older, requires nothing more than relaxing alone. Mentally
observe your surroundings. Notice all the details but don't dwell on any of them, necessarily.
Then simultaneously be aware of your thoughts, images flitting across your mind, daydreams,
anything. Don't necessarily dwell on any of those either.
Then see if you can mentally observe yourself observing your surroundings and observing your
thoughts. Become aware of the part of you that's observing yourself observing yourself.
Then let yourself find that part of consciousness that's observing yourself observing yourself
observing yourself.
Then keep going.
That's all there is to it.
Though to achieve comfort in fully living from that greater perspective may take a lifetime, it
need not. Nor is there ever a problem with maintaining focus on physical or mental tasks at hand,
like performing job duties.
There are many other techniques. These are the beginnings of exploring the greater self through
constructive use of Neptune's archetype of dissolving boundaries to understand greater insights.
Neptune currently (2011-2025) transits Pisces, sign of Christianity in particular and of the
underlying spirituality promised by all revealed religions (Sagittarius) in general. The two
functions and energies in the psyche (Sagittarius and Pisces) are always square each other:
always at war.
If Sagittarius is placed at the First house position to study it in relation to other life matters
(houses), then Pisces becomes the Fourth house foundation, home and parental security
underlying 'religion': the Father in Heaven (Fourth of the father) to be found in one's closet
described in Matthew 6:6.
With instantaneous mass communications now available to humanity, the witnessed results of
warring tribal faiths on secular politics and governments grow increasingly clear and disturbing.
Neptune's 14-year journey through Pisces (square Sagittarius) is eerily similar to the bottoming
out stage of any addiction: the increasingly destructive dependence on the external substance
(dogma) gradually erodes and exposes the denials, excuses, lies, hostilities and dependencies.
At the heart of religions is their promise of transcendence, as with drugs. Christianity's real
miracle was its realization and teaching that God and Man are the same. God dwells on earth,
within mankind, where previously the Gods existed separately from humanity.
Once authentic personal transcendence is attained, drugs are no longer required. In fact, they
prevent the psyche's claiming such states. LSD may offer initial breakthroughs in perception. But
if such awareness is only to be had through ingestion of external chemicals it is artificial, not
authentic. On the other hand, if God can be experienced without purchasing a middleman's
dogma and intercession, dependence on secondhand revealed religion – like magic mushrooms –
is unnecessary.
Nor, as atheists tell us, is any experience of God required at all. Perhaps their Neptune
archetype discovers personal transcendence elsewhere. Or not.
Those considerations lie at the heart of the difference and clash between religion and
spirituality: between the archetypes of Sagittarius and Pisces and Jupiter and Neptune in
astrology. Jupiter's energy always contains elements of outward appeals to propriety, conformity
to laws, dogmas, rituals, books, schools, authorities and the impressionable outer trappings of
pomp. Neptune's energy in the psyche is a completely internal realization. Neptune's truly
transcendent spirituality threatens Jupiter's religiosity because no reliance on middlemen or
tithes is necessary for Neptune's unconditional love, ever higher and deeper understanding, or
feeling the security of belonging. Spirituality is internal, not external.
There seem but two choices available with Neptune's archetype in the Sixth house and the
psyche: 1) Nothing has any real meaning; all is false; or 2) Everything has a deeper richer
meaning, without end. The first path is nihilistic. The second path is often called 'faith,' but faith
is belief and trust without evidence, sought in revealed religions and secondhand 'truths'
parroted from others.
That is inauthentic spirituality and metaphysics where, in both, free evidence of pre-existing
archetypes abounds throughout existence. We're asked: "Do you believe in astrology?" It's like
asking if we 'believe' the Sun appears to rise each morning.
Astrology, like its archetypes, has nothing to do with faith or belief and everything to do with
direct experience, the most profound of which may be that the self, like the Sun each day, every
year, is always resurrected.

Pluto in the Sixth House

P luto was discovered on February 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, an assistant at the Lowell
Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Eight months later and half a world away in Germany – synchronously, as Carl Jung might say,
with Tombaugh's epochal discovery of the 'last' planet in our solar system and the first
discovered since Neptune in 1846 – after a decade of building strength through the Hitler Youth,
the Brown Shirts and the SA; after gaining a stunning victory in the Reichstag earlier that same
year to become Germany's second largest party; and against the backdrop of the Great
Depression; the Nazi Party's SA launched its first major anti-Jewish action, smashing windows
of Jewish-owned stores along the Potsdamer Platz on October 13, 1930.
Two short years later, in January 1933, Hitler appointed himself Chancellor, consolidated
absolute power, and lit the fuse that finally exploded in Kristallnacht, the onset of World War II,
and the Holocaust – the first and only (so far) world war abruptly halted by the atomic bomb.
The Thousand Year Reich lasted a mere ten years. The role of the Catholic Church in Germany
and around the world in supporting anti-Semitism and the extermination of Jews is still debated
today, as it doubtless will be as long as the Church survives.
This darkest period of the 20th Century (some say in human history) had everything: nationalism,
revenge (for the Treaty of Versailles after World War I), obsession with masculinity and
military power, homophobia, racism, ancient collective religious bigotry, bloodlust and
unprecedented violence and destruction.
Like everything else about astrology, it seems inconceivable that the tiny and (so far) most
distant planet, Pluto, could possibly have any connection with human psyches or world events.
Technically, Pluto is now a "minor planet" or "dwarf planet." But big things come in small
packages. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, forever transforming human life and
consciousness on Earth, was called "Little Boy."
Pluto in horoscopes has the same impact in people's lives.
By its sign, house and aspects it indicates one's potentials for extreme highs and lows;
obsessions and compulsions; lust for power (sexual and otherwise); terrifying destruction and
awesome creation. Its archetype in the psyche is the deepest, least consciously accessible, most
unfathomable and non-verbal in the sense of being impossible to justly describe through words.
Dr. William Davidson characterized Pluto's effect in the body as a "triple strength Mars." That
appears accurate in practice, especially with hard aspects, which should always be studied
delicately but intently for their possible effects on physical, emotional and psychological health.
Pluto's house, sign and aspects mean business; often life or death issues. But even its hard
aspects don't necessarily mean death, though they can if never made somewhat conscious and
deeply, honestly, addressed.
If Mars is the archetype of anger, among other things, Pluto is the archetype of rage. If Mars is
acute, Pluto is chronic.
Pluto is a primary significator for examining extremes like child sexual abuse, domestic abuse
and violence, rape, homicide, destructive obsessions or compulsions, terrorist acts, self-injury,
suicide, and extremely disabling or life-threatening disease conditions or wounds in both mind
and body.
One key to unlocking Pluto's energy and process in the mind and body is its association with the
sign it rules, Scorpio, which rules the organs of elimination and of sex and reproduction.
Despite millennia of longstanding well-intentioned but misguided efforts of the squeamish to
limit sexual expression to reproduction only, denying the sheer pleasure of sexual energies begs
trouble of one kind or another. Sexuality may be denied or abandoned for celibacy, if that is
indeed a healthy personal choice not coerced by fear or guilt-inducing external threats from
parental, religious or other authorities. But the instant that natural sexual urges are fought –
especially at the behest of another instead of the self – they're chronically pushed deeper inside
where they can only fester and ultimately cause immense damage.
Yes, the sex urge is that powerful. And Pluto is all about power.
"Sex, death and rebirth, and religion. That's all you need to know about Scorpio. If you
understand that, you understand everything," Linda Goodman assured me in the late '60s in
another of her invaluable Aries epigrams on-the-fly. She was right.
Psychologists have always recognized the seemingly odd and always unnerving connection
between sex, violence, death, rebirth and religion. "Le petit mort" (the little death) is the savvy
French metaphor for orgasm because at climax the self and ego are merged and lost in unity with
the other.
Religions have recognized these deep connections since antiquity. Controlling and channeling
sexual urges meant survival and dominance of the tribe. Inculcating artificial sexual guilt
remains an enormous component of religions' power – another reason religion often views
psychology and education in general with fear and hostility, because one of the missions of self-
awareness and knowledge is to remove artificial guilt.
Law enforcement since Hammurabi has also acknowledged those ancient archetypal linkages,
accustomed as are police to crimes of violence and passion.
Astrologers have the shorthand of Pluto's and Scorpio's glyphs to immediately convey all those
meanings, connections and depths.
One might well add "medicine" to Goodman's thumbnail description of Scorpio, for the healing
arts (especially surgery) are another prominent association with Pluto and Scorpio –
investigating and diagnosing hidden conditions and snatching life from the jaws of death. Law
enforcement, detective work and forensics are recognized by astrologers as still other vocational
additions to these archetypes, since Pluto and Scorpio are naturally deeply curious and
investigative energies preoccupied with – what else? – life and death, life's dark side, and
passionate extremes (i.e., criminal behaviors).
No wonder Pluto is a horoscope's allegorical atomic bomb. It may never explode, but if it does .
...
Another odd phenomenon with Pluto (not really odd, given its archetypal meanings), is its
capacity to sexualize the matters of whatever house it occupies. Pluto's sign is more collective
and generational than any other planetary archetype because (depending where Pluto is in its
wildly elliptical orbit) it spends from 12 to 31 years in one sign. Pluto sexualizes in the sense of
being irresistibly drawn to merge and identify with (or be repulsed by) and re-creates its house
matters even when those seem to have no direct connection to sex.
Pluto in the Second, for instance, may be obsessed with money and material possessions; its own
and others'. Greed and selfishness can be negative expressions of this placement, as can wealth
and power. But so may poverty, along with envy and resentment of those wealthier; the opposite
ends of Pluto's dichotomy of extremes. In the Third or Ninth, Pluto can be powerful but also
tyrannical in its opinions and communications, its education, its ideas – exactly like a possessive
and jealous lover.
Jealousy and possessiveness are common components with which Pluto must contend and they
are inevitably about power and perceived (but concealed) personal weaknesses or
inadequacies.
Pluto in the Sixth house of psychological self-integration can make for the most effective in-
depth psychotherapists of all. Anybody with this placement knows they have powerful
psychodynamics to live with, which to be constructive almost require conscious study and effort
demanded by mental health fields. Without deliberate effort and discipline, or in primitive,
uneducated or unaware Pluto types, this position can indicate major problems – in the mind,
body or both.
Pluto in the Sixth signifies remarkable curiosity – the kind that killed the cat if it's unfocused and
unconscious, because it's essentially fearless and relentless once stirred. But Pluto energies are
also very much either-or: there is no middle ground or balance, absent other factors. So this
same Pluto position may denote inordinate or compulsive fears and revulsions as well as great
curiosity and capacity for exploring and analyzing in depth.
Sex, with Pluto in the Sixth, tends to underlie everything, though Pluto often adroitly conveys the
impression that it couldn't care less about the things and people it cares about most. Pluto's is an
extremely private, hidden energy and archetype that doesn't share its deepest feelings and desires
easily; it accurately perceives that they're so powerful they could be overwhelming if vented
freely so it usually exudes an aura of being calmly but surely in control.
Unconsciously, this position never feels it can trust or rely on things or people it cannot own
(and therefore control). The truth is the reverse and the source of many of Pluto's problems when
in the Sixth: the only person they can ever and always own and control is themselves. Their
possessiveness, jealousy and controlling power-plays in close friendships and intimate ties may
ultimately cost them those they love most dearly.
Though not given to excessive displays of affection or sentimentality, and certainly not
weakness, this position needs to feel needed perhaps more intensely than any other in astrology,
including the Moon in the Sixth. It can unconsciously seek close friends and partners who are
financially, emotionally or physically weaker, to ensure their dependency. Yet socially and
professionally it gravitates toward powerful and influential people. It worships honesty but hates
criticism, which wounds it deeply.
People with Pluto in the Sixth often have a penetrating gaze that seems to bore deeply into others
without effort. Some have compared it to the stare of an eagle or owl. Those are birds of prey,
and Pluto here can seem to size up others to respect as equals or dismiss as snacks. They don't
suffer fools. Unlike other archetypes in this position, however, Pluto senses when to remain
silent, accrue power and bide it's time.
Fascinatingly, other people often open up to these types five minutes after meeting them, sharing
intimate details about themselves as if reuniting with their long lost twin or cozily reclined on
Sigmund Freud's couch. Pluto in the Sixth projects a trustworthiness, depth and strengthening
quality that's genuine and attractive to many. It's a natural healer.
The regenerative powers of Pluto here are legendary. It can overcome or compensate for
challenges, illnesses, injuries, tragedies and heartbreaks that would kill lesser mortals. The
psychological self-integration of this placement, in fact, seems to unconsciously require periodic
'deaths and rebirths' of self in some form or other for validation and renewal. It may lose a
beloved parent, child, job or partner to death or betrayal, for example, and carry the loss to the
grave. Yet it always eventually manages to compensate and rejoin the living to love anew –
though perhaps in a different way or area of life.
Even the rare milquetoasts with this position are naturals in a crisis and can morph into heroes
or heroines in an emergency – if everybody else has first refused the role. They prefer to see if
others can help themselves before extending a hand. They may not be first to volunteer but they'll
rescue the last survivor from the rubble once they jump in to assist.
If life doesn't deliver the seemingly necessary cyclical challenges for 'death and rebirth'
experiences, Pluto unconsciously creates them. Though incredibly loyal, once it feels betrayed
or wronged its bridges stay burned. Permanently. Pluto, again, is either-or. Others are either on
its side or its enemies, though Pluto in the Sixth never admits this and is seldom likely to say it
directly to someone's face. It seems cool and unfazed if it ever again inadvertently encounters the
offender. But its intensely self-protective, competitive and other-destructive instincts operate
subtly behind enemy lines to plant seeds of doubt that, with time, destroy opponents.
Pluto's Sixth house placement is dedicated and relentless, amazingly energetic and deeply
resourceful. When its archetype is channeled into careers appealing to its true talents and
interests, it's the closest astrology comes to guaranteeing success – though there may be a price
to pay in its personal and private life.
It's important for the astrologer to explore events occurring in the client's life at the age shown
by Pluto's degree (and divisions and multiples of it), and events at the age corresponding to the
number of degrees separating Pluto from exact hard aspects (in orb at birth) with other planets
(and divisions and multiples of those too). Delving into those events and their significance can
reveal great insights into how Pluto's archetype affects the psyche and hence the entire life.
Say Pluto in a woman's chart is at 13º Libra at birth, in her Sixth house, opposite Mars at 21º
Aries in her Twelfth. This aspect will synchronize with significant impact on men (starting with
the father figure), marriage, sex, pregnancy (particularly a second pregnancy, ruled by the Sixth
house in female charts) and childbirth, her work and occupation, her psychological and perhaps
physical health.
Age 13 (Pluto's degree) is a natural place to begin exploring Plutonic events that might connect
the dots for her. So are events at age 21 (Mars' degree). But so are even earlier events derived
from dividing those birth degrees by 2 (at ages 6 ½ and 10 ½ respectively) and multiplying them
by 2 (at ages 26 and 42, respectively), and so on.
The Mars-Pluto square is 8º from exact. Remarkably, every 8 years throughout her life, that
square archetype will be experienced in different but significant and meaningful ways. (See
"Using Degrees" for detailed examination of these techniques.)
Not every age using these degrees will be equally important, obviously, or even necessarily
recalled. But sufficient corresponding events will be remembered to initiate discussions of how
they have affected her belief systems about those areas of life and her subsequent choices. The
resulting insights about how those archetypes function in her life will provide a full picture of
future possibilities when they are again triggered by solar arcs or transits.
Particularly with hard aspects to Pluto in the Sixth, extremely powerful hurtful or threatening
early events may be so deeply buried and ingrained that their effects are honestly dismissed or
denied. The self-protective stubbornness with this placement may make it impossible to ever
fully acknowledge its power, even when its long tentacles are accurately pointed out.
That's when Pluto's position can turn deadly through choices and habits that over time directly or
indirectly contribute to self-destruction – like the proverbial scorpion stinging itself as its last
line of defense against predators.
But here, with Pluto in the Sixth, the predator lies within all along.
Remember Pluto's process of elimination? It's always Pluto's means of survival, in the body and
the mind.
Pluto here has a reputation for connoting strong health and impressive recuperative powers. It
may rarely become ill. But if it does, the condition is usually quite serious or perhaps chronic.
Pluto's extremes, again.
With serious physical conditions, early detection and surgical removal, if possible, offer the best
restorative of health (over chemical or radiation treatment if there are options), for these types,
all else being equal. Pluto here recovers as completely as possible from surgery, so deep are its
regenerative and restorative strengths.
With psychological conditions, elimination is again Pluto-in-the-Sixth's preferred alternative to
'living with' or 'adjusting to' toxic people, jobs, parents, relatives, in-laws, friends or mates. So
fundamental is 'cutting out' and 'cutting off' with Pluto's energy that attempting to follow even
well-meaning advice and counsel to see things through can eventuate in growing resentment,
escalation of hostilities and potentially harmful acting out. People with this position know when
things have run their course, if honest with themselves. At the same time it's incredibly hard and
painful for them to let go, though entirely necessary, especially in abusive situations.
But even, say, in marriages that seem to have reached the end of the road, if Pluto and its partner
are truly willing to undergo counseling and psychotherapy, it can realize a transformation and
rebirth of the union that would be impossible for most others.
Failure to act on early diagnosis of such psychological and emotional conditions – including
destructive habits as well as people and situations – can be as risky as delaying life-saving
surgery for the body.
Those born with Pluto in the Sixth take life extremely seriously, though others might never know
it.
One remarkably consistent reason, often but not always found through questioning by the
astrologer and even then sometimes only recalled by clients after the fact, is that they were born
into an atmosphere of serious doubt, fear, urgency, emergency, insecurity, illness, death or
mourning as a result of events occurring between a year prior to or three years following their
birth.
Such clients have confirmed they were unwanted when their mothers carried them; a grandparent
or sibling died shortly before or after their birth; a father or mother lost a job or miscarried
another child; they were born into extreme poverty or hardship; a parent was seriously mentally
or physically ill; a natural disaster wiped out everything; the bank foreclosed on their home;
gang violence was a daily threat; they were homeless for a time; placed in temporary or
permanent foster care; given up for adoption; physically abused; seriously ill or injured as an
infant or toddler.
It's not that people without Pluto in the Sixth don't experience identical or similar events early in
life: they may. The fact delights skeptics and disturbs some astrologers who misunderstand
astrology as causal rather than synchronous. But people's reactions to and experiences of similar
or identical situations are entirely different. They mean something else completely, or can mean
nothing much at all, and are therefore neither reflected in the same arrangements of astrology's
archetypes nor in people's psyches and their resulting belief systems, expectations and future
choices.
Clients expect, and most astrologers try to provide, some 'events' magically revealed through
astrology. The correlation of external events with astrology's internal archetypes is fascinating
and often seems miraculous and even fatalistic or causal, though in fact it's synchronous. What
are really important are events' significances, meanings and effects in a person's psyche and life.
Whatever it was, those born with Pluto in the Sixth may well have experienced an early and
forgotten trauma that formed the certainty that life is intense, precious, precarious, perhaps
threatening and might be ended any moment. Joys are welcomed and cherished but may not last.
Grab and hold on to whatever you can – for dear life.
The early origins of possessiveness and power struggles common to this placement may be
found here, as well as experiencing, later in life, periodic extremes of highs and lows or crises
and challenges more dramatic than most people's, in matters ruled by Pluto's house, the houses
with Scorpio and Aries on their cusps, and Mars' (co-ruler of Scorpio) house, sign and aspects.
"Transformation" is the cookbook buzzword astrologers glibly tag to Pluto, but there's nothing
facile about sex, death-rebirth and religion.
Pluto came into the world in 1930 as a planet and astrological archetype just as the fuse was lit
for the Holocaust; everybody was clearly a Bad Guy or Good Guy; and the "Little Boy" dropped
on Hiroshima forever destroyed the old world, delivering humanity into a frightening,
wonderful, terrified, brave new one.
Twenty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Time magazine's cover asked, "Is God Dead?"
Twenty years later still, Jung's collective unconscious morphed into the collective conscious as
all knowledge increasingly aggregates just a click away in the global Cloud and Johannes
Gutenberg jumps for joy in whatever sixth-string dimension he now abides.
Cathedrals dwindle to fewer and fewer elderly worshipers surrounded by more and more
secular tourists ogling stained glass windows and flying buttresses. Frightened faithful fight
losing battles over holy lands, same-sex marriage and women's equality.
Yahweh, Adonai, Allah and The Lord – not to mention Xenu and Moroni – go the way of Baal
and Thor and Zeus as the equinoxes slouch toward Aquarius.
And one tiny dwarf planet now orbits through Capricorn of Earth and Nations while life slowly
chokes and drowns in pollution, or ends with a whimper from climate change . . . unless we save
or destroy ourselves through One World Government, with all its risks and promises.
In the 21st Century, the Gods and Monsters are all coming home where they were born, between
our ears.
That's transformation.
That's Pluto.
###
 About the Author

For 50 years and over 40,000 clients, Robert Glasscock has been a Los Angeles-based
astrologer consulting with clients from 122 countries. For many years he authored over 250,000
words annually in "American Astrology Magazine’s" monthly and Annual Yearbook issues for
Publisher Joanne Clancy. His writings for newspaper columns, magazines and anthologies have
been cited by Liz Greene, among others.
Having begun to build his own clientele, Bob was invited to study with Linda Goodman in the
‘60s. Since she no longer saw clients (intently writing her second book), she referred her new
clients to Bob. He became an early member of Joan McEvers’ and Marion March’s "Aquarius
Workshops," lecturing there as well as national conferences and conventions. He’s been invited
to address a variety of forums from the Bank of Beverly Hills’ after-work seminars to medical
associations to political, professional, media, civic and religious organizations. Robert is an
adjunct instructor for Kepler College.
 Online:
Site: http://rglasscock4sight.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertGlasscock
 Other Titles:

The Practice of Astrology (22,566 words; $3.99) Complete analysis of everything you need
to know for professional astrology practice, including: What kind of astrologer are you? How to
work with every kind of client. You’re only as accurate as the chart: the Why and How of on-
the-spot rectification with clients. Everybody has four charts. A good astrologer is a good
psychologist. Your horoscope guides your professional practice. Advertising. Fees. Venues.
Success and Failure. Example charts and diagrams.

Astrology Rising (15,410 words; Free) Introduction to Robert Glasscock's series, "Notes on
Essentials of Astrology," based on lectures, classes, workshops, seminars in the United States,
international webinars, and 50 years of professional counseling with over 40,000 clients from
122 countries. The art, science, techniques and practical considerations of astrological practice
for amateur and professional astrologers. “After all these years of working as an astrologer,
it's unusual to find newly illuminating material to conceptualize and explore.” - Hadley
Fitzgerald

Using Degrees – A Lifetime at a Glance (28,854 words; $3.99) Everything you need to
read an entire lifetime is already right in front of you in horoscopes. You can refine readings
with additional techniques, but not for this book. Close your ephemeris and "make something
out of everything you see" – Robert Glasscock's keynote in classes, workshops and seminars.
Degrees – of planets, angular distances, their multiples and divisions – yield specific cycles and
ages for important themes and events, easily calculated in your head. The Developmental Arc.
Ten Techniques for Reading "A Lifetime in a Glance." Angles and Life Cycles. Decanates,
Duads and Turning Points. Birthdates of Significant Others in Your Life.
Coming Series Titles