Public/private enemies & their houses

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This post started off in the Mundane section about Arnold but transmuted into something else which belonged here. Basically, I was looking at Arnold's natal chart in relation to the inauguration chart and noticed that most of his natal planets are in the 7th house of the inauguration chart. His natal Moon is in the 12th house.

This got me thinking about public enemies/private enemies and the 7th/12th houses. Tom, I seem to recall (and please forgive me if I am misrepresenting you or taking it out of context) you said you don't go along with the differentiation between public and private enemies or of public enemies in the 7th house.

I know that Robert Schmidt puts them in the 6th and 12th but also has quite different ideas about what is public and private according to hellenistic astrology. He says that the 6th house public enemies are public because they are enemies of the state and are therefore your enemies, whereas 12th house enemies are private because they are your own individual enemies. I don't actually recall his explanation of why public enemies belong in the 6th house, but remember he said that the reason this was moved to the 7th house was because of the 'mistaken' belief that house meanings are derived from their aspect relationship to the ascendant.

My understanding is that the 7th house is where we find enemies that are known to us, i.e. we know they are out to get us, so to speak. They can be the opposition in a law suit for example(an individual), or the opposition in a war (another country). To take Arnold, it doesn't take a genius to know that he has many public opponents that can be represented by the 7th house. The 12th house is where we find enemies who are not currently known to us. Lilly talks about enemies in the 12th who maliciously undermine their neighbours or inform secretly against them. This makes sense to me because it is the house where things are hidden and secret. It is a weak house and weakens our position. Having an enemy who is hidden and secretive certainly weakens our position whereas having an enemy we know about is easier to confront.

I'd be interested to hear some thoughts.

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Hi Sue,

Let me see if I can sort out my own beliefs on this matter please excuse the rambling nature of what follows.

I have a problem, I don't necessarily reject it outright, with the open enemies, hidden enemies thing. Let's look at the 7th house of open enemies. It is also the house of thieves. Unless the thief is known to us, highly unlikely, it seems to me that thieves would belong in the 12th house of hidden enemies. Now we might argue that a thief is a thief he is not our enemy, but I find that reasoning weak. It has also been argued that what the thief does is out in the open so even though he is unknown to us, his actions aren't. Well they are in the open after they've been done. The idea is that a secret enemy does things to you and you don't know about them until it is too late and then you don't know who did it. Anyone familiar with Ocam's razor? Ocam the philosopher pointed out the fallacy of needlessly splitting arguments into too fine a distinction. Therefore, he argued, the simplist explanation is most likely to be true. I think this is where we are at with open/secret enemies; we don't need to split them. The dichotmy makes me uncomfortable, although I admit I've seen these distinctions put to good use in charts.

My question is this: do we need to disect enemies into two different houses? If so, why? I can see why we might want to differentiate rivals from enemies. Joe and I might want to date the same woman, but we aren't necessarily enemies. Rivals oppose us and therefore belong in the 7th. This is easily seen to be of value in sports charts. But even this becomes problematic since the 7th is also the house of my partner. It just seems confusing that partners, enemies and thieves are all in the same house.

Schmidt is convinced of the superiority of Hellenistic astrology. Fine. He makes some very persuasive arguments, also fine, but in doing so the astrology becomes static. There is no room for refinement or improvement. Schmidt looks at medieval astrology and cries "heresy!" He sees the differences as mistakes in translation and/or understanding. What he sees as heresy may just as well be what Deb said, changes resulting from ideas that didn't survive, most likely because they didn't work very well. I would think that after 500 or more years of using the 7th as open enemies and the 12th as secret enemies someone would have noticed if splitting them didn't work.

I'm just not comfortable with the idea of dividing enemies. My enemy is out to get me whether I know who he is or not. In the current Iraq war, are the enemies of the Anglo-American alliance 7th (open) or 12th (terrorists)? Both? Is the Alliance the open enemy of the terrorists and the terrorists the secret enemies of the Alliance? Does it matter? Do they change houses once they are exposed? I think the duality confuses the issue rather than clarifies it, which is what we want our astrology to do.

Tom

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Well then, why split anything? Why give the father the 4th and the mother the 10th when they both belong in the 4th according to Schmidt? They are both parents. What does it matter what gender they are. Or why give short distance travel to the 3rd and long distance travel to the 9th? Though according to Schmidt we have stuffed this up as well.
Ockham's nominalistic conceptualism isn't suggesting that we can't differentiate. One of the reasons he developed his theories was to avoid conflicting evidence. If we multiply something too much then we will come to a point where the the sum of the parts doesn't make sense. He was more interested in avoiding needless multiplying than spliting - which, in a way, is what you are saying - why have two houses when you can have one?
I think there is a big difference between open enemies and secret enemies. I see what you are saying about someone being out to get me being similar whether I know about it or not but I still think that it would be approached differently. If I know that X is my enemy, I have some idea of how to approach the thing. If I don't know that Y is also my enemy, I can't deal with it. It is hidden. I am being duped behind my back. I agree with Lilly's description on this one.
I understand what you are saying about the difference between a rival and an enemy. They are not necessarily the same thing but are placed in the same house. I can also understand why you would suggest that a thief would be better off in the 12th house. I did read somewhere that once a secret enemy becomes a known enemy, he/she moves to the 7th house.
I'm not sure that having two houses is duality as much as it is differentiation.

Sue

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Well then, why split anything? Why give the father the 4th and the mother the 10th when they both belong in the 4th according to Schmidt?
He's right, but they are two different people and at times we need to differentiate. The mother is the 10th only because she is the spouse (7th) of the father (4th). We we combine them as in "my parents are mean to me," they are the 4th.
Or why give short distance travel to the 3rd and long distance travel to the 9th? Though according to Schmidt we have stuffed this up as well.
And he has a point here as well. How far is short? Well, we now say routine and non-routine for 3rd and 9th since I could routinely make a trip from NJ to Washington DC (about 20-0 miles) and that's 3rd house but if I run to the NJ shore (about 60 miles) for a dayof rest that's 9th. Modern travel has changed things so much we need to torture the chart in order to make it fit. I say journeys are 9th and that solves the problem.
I think there is a big difference between open enemies and secret enemies.
There is a significant difference. I concede that point. I'm just not sure about the different houses and why they would both be above the horizon.
Ockham's nominalistic conceptualism isn't suggesting that we can't differentiate. One of the reasons he developed his theories was to avoid conflicting evidence.
I didn't mean to imply that. And I was trying to provide what I see as conflicting evidence which is why I mentioned him. If I failed in that regard, it isn't Ocam's fault; it's mine ;-)

[/quote]I'm not sure that having two houses is duality as much as it is differentiation.

I'm not sure either, which is why I called what I wrote "rambling." But I lean to duality while acknowledging that the system seems to work. Hoiw's that for equivocating? Thanks for writing.

Tom

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And he has a point here as well. How far is short? Well, we now say routine and non-routine for 3rd and 9th since I could routinely make a trip from NJ to Washington DC (about 20-0 miles) and that's 3rd house but if I run to the NJ shore (about 60 miles) for a dayof rest that's 9th. Modern travel has changed things so much we need to torture the chart in order to make it fit. I say journeys are 9th and that solves the problem.
I think Schmidt sees it a little differently. He says that 9th house travel originally represented travel to seek the oracle or for the purposes of study or contemplation. So if you travel to the 'Oracle of Delphi' for example, that is 9th house travel. If you travel to see the pyramids and you just happen to live a mile away, that is still 9th house travel. But if you travel to see your family, that is third house travel. If my family just happen to live in another country and I travel to see them, this is still 3rd house travel. I agree that our way of travel has changed so much that it is difficult to fit it into simple house concepts but I'm not sure I agree with Schmidt's assessment of it.
So do you put any sort of travel in the 3rd house, Tom?

I'm not sure either, which is why I called what I wrote "rambling."
Well, I didn't see it as rambling. Sounded like a perfectly cogent argument to me.

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Hi Sue,
So do you put any sort of travel in the 3rd house, Tom?
Are you familiar with the saying: "Do as I say, not as I do?" In my case it might be better stated "Do as I do, not as I say."

I've said this many times before, but I am studying natal astrology with John Frawley. He splits the houses into routine and non-routine. I think it is a good idea to do as instructed by the person to whom you give money to instruct. After all, why pay someone and then do as you damn well please, which is something you can do for free?. So, as of this moment, I split enemies into 7th (open) and 12th (secret), and journeys into routine (3rd) and non-routine (9th). I ruminate on this list to help me think things through, and I enjoy intelligent challenges because that helps me clarify things in my own mind. I may not always do things the way I'm doing them now.

One thing traditional astrology taught me is that there are reasons for everything in astrology. If I'm going to stray, I want to have sound reasons for doing so. You're helping me do that.

Also, this is the main reason I read and study, Morin. Morin broke with the traditions of his day. Whether we agree with him or not, it cannot be said that he didn't give logical reasons for his positions and breaks with the past. If one is going to disagree with Morin, one needs to have a well thought-out reason for doing so. I cringe every time I hear: "Well, it works for me!" Most of the time this is just an excuse for laziness. If the person saying this has a good deal of sound experience with a technique or delineation, then a) there will be a reason for what works, and b) it should work for others. As John says, "The astrology knows; you don't." Therefore it is important not that I develop new techniques that serve my ego, but that I understand the astrology.

Is that clear? I hope so.

Tom

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Schmidt is right though and has done excellent research. I disagree that what he does result in "static" view. To be able to progress something, you first have to understand it and understand its rationale and the ways and processes through which it developed.
A NEW ORDER IS EMERGING THROUGH A MILLION THUNDERS

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Why does Schmidt likes so much Hellenistic astrology? Why does he believe that medieval is "heresy!"? It is obvious that he does not take any religious stance.

But in the Schmidt world, his gods are philosophy and logic. Schmidt is an excellent thinker and a well trained one. He studies the Hellenistic astrology and finds out that everything is laid out in a logical way, with sound and proper arguments. In Hellenistic astrology everyone prove their points, justify their thesis. While in the medieval astrology, there is no such thing available. No argumentation. No rationale. It is an arbitrariness. That, Schmidt cannot accept. And cries Heresy!

Indeed it is heresy in the Schmidt world such a thing. Now, Tom, you want to progress astrology. Great! Noone will be happier than me if you do. But you have to do it the proper way. You see what is going on in the field of Astrology, you see what the sceptics are doing, you see that noone thinks that Astrology is a science, whereas it should be. It contains maths, geometry, philosophy, cosmological and theological principles, all laid out in the proper foundations. It should be a science. But it is not.

So, Tom, you think that "secret enemies" should be in the 12th house? Fine. Why? Prove your thesis.

Define what "secret enemies" is. Lay down the categories of "secret enemies". There are "secret enemies" because of envy, there are "secret enemies" because they think you are an obstacle against their desires, there are "secret enemies" because of their personal interest (the healthy way), there are "secret enemies" because of accidental circumstances and so on. But all the above can be applied to "open enemies" as well. So what distinguishes "secret enemies" from "open enemies"?

What kinds of "secret enemies" should be included in the 12th house? Why? Why not the 1st or the 5th or the 6th for instance? Why exclusively to the 12th house?

Be original. "I feel that..." or "Lily said so...", or "my teacher told me so..." and the likes are not good enough.

Make your thesis. Build your argumentation. Make it sound in the logical way. Spot the self-contradictions if any. Debug. Thats's the proper way to continue and progress astrology. No more arbitrariness...
A NEW ORDER IS EMERGING THROUGH A MILLION THUNDERS

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Tom has already explained his point very reasonably. How can you suggest that he is merely following tradition and make those latter comments when all you have done is quote Schmidt?

Have you done original research to qualify you to be so demanding and aggressive towards other people's views?