[BNP/E3, 906 – 20-22]
Of the new schemes, I shall, as I have intimated, register only Baldaya's, because it is the only one which has a sufficient scientific semblance to warrant its being opposed, in the abstract, to the traditional scheme. Baldaya takes Leo and its ruler the logic of the Sun as the starting point and goes round the zodiac backwards from there in the same manner and order of distance from the Sun, (heliocentric considerations being set apart[1] in the case of the Moon), as in the old scheme. In this case[2], however, only one sign is attributed to each planet. We begin with Cancer, which belongs to the Moon; Gemini comes next, and it is Mercury's. Then Taurus, for Venus and then Aries for Mars; Pisces is left void and unruled, which is in strict accordance with Bode's law which requires a planet (dead or alive[3]) between Mars and Jupiter. Aquarius, and though here we run counter to tradition, is attributed to Jupiter; it is just[4] to note that Aquarius[5] has been attributed to Jupiter by Wemyss (?) and others. Capricorn is attributed to Saturn, Sagittarius to Uranus, Scorpio to Neptune, Libra to Pluto that we can find to be Pluto, and Virgo left free for some further planet then and yet not found. The attribution of a fiery sign to Uranus and of a watery one to Neptune seems particularly fitting, if we consider the nature, not now too unknown, of those two planets. Nor if the name of just[6], does a planet called after Pluto who is just of the |*outer | world, seem unbefitting for the rulership of the Scales. [The older[7] attributions, also conjectural in their nature, of Aquarius to Uranus and Pisces to Neptune, have always seemed to careful students somewhat doubtful and certainly less credible in the former than in the latter case.]
One strange[8] thing I have noticed, after examining many horoscopes in terms both of the traditional and of the Baldaya ruling: that in most cases precisely the same interpretation emerges from the employ of one or the other method. Read from my horoscope without even coming down to analysis or interpretation, the definition of personality from the ruler of the Ascendant. In the traditional scheme, we have the ruler Mars |weak| conjoined with Uranus in the twelfth house. In the Baldaya scheme we have the ruler Neptune conjoined with Pluto in the eighth. If any one will work out the interpretations, he will find them very much the same. And he will further find that even the mundane values are identical, for both the conjunction of Mars and Uranus and the conjunction of Neptune and Pluto are in the mundane sextile with the Midheaven.
[21r]
The question of the rulership of signs in astrology is an important one because judgment in respect of houses is in all cases to be made as to the place and aspects of the rulers of the signs on their cusps. The question of cusps, or of house-division, is of course a different matter.
There are two lines of approach to the solution of the problem. One is the acceptance of the traditional attributions, which distribute the rulership of the signs among the Lights and the five traditional planets, giving one sign each to the Sun and Moon and two signs to each of the planets. The other lies in the new schemes, for there are many, have been drawn up so as to attribute a rulership to planets newly discovered, and some of these schemes reckon either on the possibility of further planets being found or actually on their existence, determined by astrological, as distinct from astronomical, investigation.
There is a certain logic in the old scheme and there is logic in at least one of the new ones, the best I know, which is Baldaya's. My own hesitation is between the traditional scheme and the Baldaya scheme; all others of the new ones seem to me to have no coherence within themselves.
The logic of the old scheme lay in three axioms: (1) that the common material world, with whatever spiritual content might lie in it as a material world, was subject to the influence of only the two lights and the five old planets, any other planets discovered or to be discovered being, so to speak, alien to the cosmic scheme as affecting the earth and its inhabitants; (2) that the lights, the Sun and Moon, being visible and natural rulers of our fates, have each one house only in their ruling, whereas the five old planets, being visible only by voluntary observation, have each of them two, their force being less present to us and therefore divided; (3) that, giving the Moon and Sun the rulership of, respectively, Cancer and Leo, the rulership of the other signs is developed regularly both ways, in the order of distance from the Sun of the planets concerned. Working backwards from Cancer that is lunar and retrograde, we have Gemini for Mercury, Taurus for Venus, Aries for Mars, Pisces for Jupiter, Aquarius for Saturn, and there we stop. And that afterwards, working forwards from Leo, that is solar and progressed we have, in the same order and manner, Virgo for Mercury, Libra for Venus, Scorpio for Mars, Sagittarius for Jupiter, Capricorn for Saturn, and there we stop again. There is an excellently logical setting in all this. The other planets, from Uranus to Pluto, are, in this scheme, denizens of an outer world, the bringers-in of influences foreign to the substance and rule of the world we live in, which Saturn, the definer and limitator, is the legitimate boundary.
[22r]
Baldaya used to consider fame as a result of personality, either of personality as character, of personality as chance or of personality as fate. This is more or less Shakespeare’s old intuition as to some being born great, others achieving greatness and others having greatness thrust upon them. Baldaya’s judgment of fame was therefore based on the aspects to the Midheaven of the rulers of the Ascendant, of the fifth and of the ninth houses, it being understood that, according to his interpretation, it is the rulers by exaltation and not by domicile that are concerned.
Baldaya used to consider fame as a result of the aspects to the Midheaven, the planet aspecting being however significator of the house he rules by exaltation and not by domicile. Thus, in Napoleon’s horoscope, fame is shown by the mundane trine of Jupiter to Midheaven, but it is Jupiter as ruler of Cancer (the sign in Midheaven) and not as ruler of Pisces (the sign on the cusp of the sixth house) or even of Sagittarius (which is not the Baldaya attribution), which would involve the third house.
Baldaya considered fame as to be read from aspects to the Midheaven and as defined by the rulership of the ninth, tenth and eleventh houses. He described the eleventh house, where the Sun first takes its great rise, as the house of achievement; the tenth house, where the Sun is in full force, as the house of power; and the ninth house, where the Sun is at its greatest heat, as the house of fame, and the last attribution is that of the Arabians. He judged the planets aspecting the Midheaven both by the rulership in domicile and their rulership in exaltation; and he understood the first type of significance as meaning attainment by effort and the second as attainment by fate. Thus, in Napoleon’s horoscope, we have Jupiter in mundane trine to the Midheaven. Jupiter rules the sixth house by domicile (Baldaya limited Jupiter’s sign-rule to Pisces) and he rules the tenth house by exaltation. Baldaya therefore judged this to mean attainment by a mixture of hard personal effort and work and by an extraordinary intervention of environmental circumstances, which, in the example, was indeed precisely the case.
[1] apart /aside\
[2] /This being the sun's course\ In this case
[3] alive /living\
[4] just /curious\
[5] Aquarius /the sign\
[6] just /inferior\
[7] older /earlier\
[8] strange /(curious)\
