Ruling
Planets
June 10,
2005 (with Planet Table and Essential
Dignities Table)
http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/june10.html
Dear Eric,
Several years ago, I had my chart cast
and the astrologer who helped me told me that Uranus was my ruling planet (due
to having Aquarius rising), but I see in a recent answer to a question that you
also identify Saturn as a ruling planet of Aquarius. Please explain what a
ruling planet is, its significance, and the difference between traditional
ruling planets and those that have been added to astrology over the past 100
years. Also, could you recommend some good books that deal with things like
ruling planets, house cusps, etc.? There is so much out there to look at it's
hard to know where to start!
Thank you,
Tim
Dear Tim,
Before the discovery of Uranus in 1781,
there was agreement about the planetary rulers of the astrological signs since
long before the times of Ptolemy. The rulers are the planets most closely
associated with a sign. For example, the Moon rules the sign Cancer and the Sun
rules the sign Leo -- even people who have very little astrology knowledge seem
to know this. Studying the rulers helps us understand the energy of a sign as
well as tells us whether a planet does well when places in a sign. And they are
very helpful in decoding a chart. Plus, they are fairly easy to understand.
Note that the rulers or rulership are one
of five different methods for understanding whether a planet is well placed (or
poorly placed) in a sign, or a particular region of a sign (the other methods,
called 'essential dignities', are exaltation, term, face and triplicity; and
related, on the negative side, are detriment and fall). For this week, we'll
leave out the others, and work just with rulership. Rulership is also called
'domicile' because it involves discussion of whether the planet is placed well
(at home) in its 'house' (really, its sign, but in old timey astrology the
terms house and sign are sometimes used interchangeably, for a variety of good
reasons).
Ruling planets help orient astrology in
its own logic. They present a basic guideline for using and understanding
astrology. For example, if a person has Taurus rising, then Venus (the ruler of
Taurus) becomes an important planet in their chart, regardless of what sign
their Sun is in. The condition of the planet that rules the rising sign is an
important indicator of the person's life and how their chart works.
Or, if a person has Gemini on the 8th
house cusp, then Gemini and its ruling planet Mercury become important factors
in helping understand how they deal with all things related to the 8th -- such
as contracts, agreements and sex.
Using the ruling planets adds depth to
astrology, and it helps us make sense of a chart by providing a stable set of
references, and consistent language. You can take a truly complex chart and a
truly complex situation and if you can boil it down to what is going on in a
particular house, take the ruler of the sign on the cusp of the house and look
at its condition (aspects, placement, etc.), you can find yourself with a
genuine, clear understanding of what is happening. Rulership is an easy
guideline to apply, it works exceptionally well, and it's not done often
enough.
Up until the discovery of Uranus (around
the time of the American revolution, and many other revolutions), the seven
known bodies (planets, including the Sun and Moon) were applied to the 12 signs
in a symmetrical, orderly way: the Sun and Moon each ruled one sign, and
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn each ruled two of the rest.
Some time after Uranus was discovered,
the astrologer Raphael the 1st (of Raphael's Ephemeris fame) declared that
Uranus ruled Aquarius. Did he have a clue? Was he right? Could a newly
discovered planet rule a sign? Well, um, who knows? But true to form, Uranus
made a little revolution in astrology and then suddenly every time a planet was
discovered, some people decided it would depose the ruler of a sign and become
the new ruler. So the discovery of Uranus did not just affect Aquarius -- it
spread. The next place it spread was Pisces, to which
This is all well and good and modern, but
what I like to remind people is that the traditional rulers still have a great
deal of vitality, and were used for thousands of years with great effectiveness
before Uranus came along. It's also true that they represent 'old school'
thinking, but that does not, automatically, make them wrong. But it does mean
that there is a lot of tradition behind them, and when getting into occult
matters such as astrology, tradition is truly important, both because it helps
us ground in something stable, and because it helps us understand a complicated
field of knowledge. Then, we're free to do things our own way.
When I started studying astrology, I
happened to have a teacher who encouraged me to make sure I really understood
what was going on with the traditional rulers of all the signs, then take a look
at the condition of the modern rulers.
So, this is how I do astrology. I love
modern developments, such as new planets and the Galactic Core. But I also have
abiding respect for the early traditions of the craft, and I think, at least,
that everyone practicing astrology should be aware that they exist, and aware
of how they work.
However -- the case could be stated this
way. It's important to understand ANY system of rulership, and to learn to
apply it until it works. Astrology is learned on one level in theory, but it's
really learned in practice, through applying it to questions and people. If you
know that a system of rulership exists and apply it until you see it working,
that will get you pretty far in terms of gaining confidence as an astrologer.
And it's EASY -- you just have to do it.
Here's a link to another article by me on
rulership:
http://www.ericfrancis.com/sagittarius/sagittarius09.html
Here a Table of Essential Dignities is
provided by David Roell of the Astrology Center of America from his translation
of William Lilly's classic book Christian Astrology. Reach David at: http://astroamerica.com/
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