The Devine Shekinah and the Gauquelin Sectors

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Like many astrologers, for a long time in my practice I had ignored the findings for the Gauquelin sectors and followed the standard texts (e.g. deVore 1947) that described planets in the cadent houses as ?weak? placements. Eventually I became aware from observations, and protests from clients who had many cadent planets, that cadent planets actually tended to favor an outgoing personality, which I began to think of as ?high profile,? as contrasted with ?low profile? (angular planets), or ?moody? (succeedent planets).

I wondered if the standard texts were wrong and if there were some more ancient writings that would support Gaquelin?s findings. Although I hadn?t done much research, it seemed to me that I might have read somewhere that in ancient times a rising planet (in the 12th house) was auspicious.

Recently, I came across the idea that the ?devine shekinah,? mentioned numerous times in the Bible, might be linked to helical Venus (in the 12th house), which has an eight year cycle of brightness, as well as longer cycles, and other combined cycles of brightness with Mercury. This is discussed in The Book of Hiram: Freemasonry, Venus and the Secret Key to the Life of Jesus by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas.

The shekinah was usually described as a cloud of brightness and temples such as Solomon?s were oriented with dormers designed to capture its glory. Solomon, it is reported in this book, did not desire to have a democracy, such as David his father had. Democracy was considered to be an inferior and ineffective form of government at the time. Solomon desired to be exposed to the shekina which would bestow him with charisma and make him a mortal god, a true king.

(Eze. 10:4) Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD's glory.

(Eze. 43:4) And the glory of the LORD came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. (Eze. 43:5) So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house.

Knight and Lomas describe how Solomon tried to learn the secrets of temple building from the King of Tyre, a true king. They also mention much earlier structures oriented to capture the glory of helical Venus, such as the Newgrange megalithic structure in Ireland. The efforts made to capture this glory light are apparently very ancient.

I recall that when my second daughter was born, the room seemed to glow with a wondrous light. The doctor remarked about it, and everyone there noticed it. There were no windows and the door was shut. It was a moderately lit birthing room, not a brightly lit OR, which I'm sure would have drowned out the effect. The glow lasted for about a minute. Was it the divine shekinah? The chart however shows no 12th or 9th house planets. The closest, Jupiter, was in the 1st house, still 4 degrees from the ascendant.

Does a person born with planets in the 12th house enjoy a special charisma? What have other Forum readers experienced? How does astrology reconcile this meaning--which the ancients venerated, and the Gauquelin findings seem to support--with the standard interpretations for cadent houses?

KennethM

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What have other Forum readers experienced? How does astrology reconcile this meaning--which the ancients venerated, and the Gauquelin findings seem to support--with the standard interpretations for cadent houses?
One of the traps some of us, myself included, tend to fall into is viewing the chart as static, rather than looking at it as the beginning of a life unfolding. Planets in cadent houses are progressed, directed, and/or "arced" to the angles. When these planets hit the angles, significant changes occur. When George W. Bush's third house Jupiter was progressed to his IC, he was elected President of the US.

Therefore cadent planets can be viewed in terms of what they potentially can deliver as well as what they indicate in their static positions in the nativity. This is the significance of the Gauquelin results, if they tell us anything of value at all. Remember, the correlations he found worked only for the very top of the professions he examined. Everyone with Mars on an angle doesn't become a top athlete or prominent military leader. In fact, only a very tiny percentage of people with planets close to angles rise to the top of anything. Gauquelin's results beat chance. That doesn't mean 50% plus one. It means consistently beating random placement.

Does a person born with planets in the 12th house enjoy a special charisma?
Absoutely. This is the one dictum in astrology that is 100% reliable 100% of the time. Never, ever hesitate to reveal the charismatic nature of people with planets in the 12th. They have all sorts of sex appeal and other admirable qualities as well. ;-)

Tom

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Hi Tom,

I agree that progressed planets indicate important transitions, but I'm doubtful that the potential of progressions can explain personality. If your hypothesis is true then personality would have to be conditioned by events in the future. George W. Bush clearly had the personality of a politician and was very successful long before Jupiter progressed to his IC, and Gauquelin didn't even find significance for the 3rd house anyway.

Another thing that makes me doubt this is that if this were true then because of the progressed speeds of the planets, the peak of Saturn in Gauquelin's data would be closer to the ASC or MC than the Jupiter peak, and the Jupiter peak would be closer than the Mars peak. The data doesn't look like that. All the peaks are about in the middle of the g-sectors.

Military men are indicated by both Mars and Jupiter in the g-sectors. This makes things a bit tricky. Moon in the g-sectors is indicated in the charts of writers. The Moon progresses to the ASC or MC pretty fast, so maybe writers don't count? A lesser known finding is that Mars for artists is indicated not by a surplus in the 12th and 9th houses but rather in the 11th house! Your hypothesis is easily bent out of shape by the data.

By saying that only a very tiny percentage of people with planets in the g-sectors rise to the top, you seem to suggest that the Gauquelin results don't mean much. (Wasn't that the skeptic's old argument?) Is that because a g-sector Mars means nothing at all, is only a tiny contributor, or is it really because so many people don't reach their potential because they just don't know their potential?

As an astrologer it is clear to me that a consultation is worthless unless it guides the client to full potential. If astrologers do their job then maybe fewer and fewer sports champions and military men will *not* have Mars in the g-sectors, because more and more these potentially gifted people were helped by astrologers to reach their full potential. If some group of people have had great success professionally, then shouldn't the hard-earned information that's been gathered about it be passed on to others who could use it?

You agree then that 12th house planets bestow charisma, extroversion, and sex appeal. This conflicts with the conventional interpretation of 12th house representing solitude, escape, subconscious, and dreams. Were you influenced to change your mind by Gauquelin, ancient texts, or what? What made you notice this?

KennethM

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Hi,

I offered the hypothesis as a possible explanation of why Gauquelin found planets of champion athletes and prominent individuals with appropriate planets in cadent houses. In no way would I attempt to explain George Bush's personality or anyone else's with a single placement, much less with a single "hit." I only noted a planet in a Gaquelin sector (i.e. close to an angle) progressed to an angle at an important time in his life. Jupiter after all, is the planet associated with politicans. Of course he would need an apptitude for a political profession and that would be found elsewhere in the chart.

In terms of value to the practicing astrologer, I find the Gauquelin data to be just slightly above worthless. This is not because I believe it is invalid either. That would be the true position of the skeptics. For example:

Gauquelin took the charts of 3,142 military leaders. Of those 634 had Mars on an angle. Chance level was 535. The odds against his data being a fluke were estimated at one million to one. Very nice. But what does this do for a practicing astrologer? Not much. Let's say 1% of the general population becomes military leaders. That is preposterously high, but let it ride. That would mean that 314,200 people would come through your doors; 3,142 would be military leaders and you would correctly identify 634 of them using Mars on an angle. I'm not impressed. 2508 top military leaders out of 3,142 do not have Mars on an angle. Statistically this may be significant; practically it is useless. Even this data suggests an individual needs more than Mars on an angle to become a military leader just as Jupiter in the third is insufficient to produce a President.

What Gauquelin may have demonstrated is that, statistically, the birth moment matters. Science cannot abide by this as it indicates one moment is not the same as another, so they attacked him. I think he was a scrupulously honest man, and that quality, ultimately, made the skeptics and scientists that attacked him look vicious and foolish, which they were and are.

As for the 12th house remarks of mine they were intended as a joke. Nothing works 100% of the time. I only said those flattering things about people with 12th house placements because I have two planets in the 12th. I thought that was obvious, but I guess it was too subtle. I wasn't poking fun at you, just at myself.

Best wishes,

Tom

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Were you influenced to change your mind by Gauquelin, ancient texts, or what? What made you notice this?
Geez, I wonder. Isn't one of your 12th house planet Saturn, Tom? Let's face it, Saturn has about as much sex appeal as a block of wood. So surely your undeniable charm must come from somewhere else. Probably that Regulus on your ascendant :P And you shouldn?t poke fun at yourself Tom. Not when there are those who are willing to do it for you. :lol: But I probably should agree with this very astute observation since I have four planets in the 12th myself. (Does that make me twice as charming as you?) In fact, of the traditional planets, only Venus is not in a cadent house.

I really like the quote by Manilius that 'each alike (12th and 6th) moves dejected from a cardinal point with the spectacle of ruin before its eyes.' Reminds me of another often quoted phrase from Dante, 'Abandon every hope all ye who enter here.' I know he was talking about the gates of hell but perhaps hell to him was the candent houses.

The fabulous thing about statistics is that they can always say just what you want them to say.

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Hi Sue,

Yes indeed, I have Saturn Rx in Leo in the 12th along with Pluto. Mars is at 26 Leo, and my ASC is at 29 Leo so I toss Mars into the first, others would leave it in 12. So having all malefic planets retrograde in the 12th probably doesn't equal charm. You probably are twice as charming as I am, but 4 planets in 12 might not be the reason. I think we need to look elsewhere. ;-)

Gauquelin's work has value. I don't deny that. It's the practical application that eludes me. Also his statistical analysis works best with people at the very top of their profession. The same correlations do not hold for second level professionals. Still it was enough to set the scientists in a tizzy. He even tried to deny the significance of his own work because he set out to disprove astrology. His "fair minded" collegues questioned his integrity, his intelligence, and his sanity. "It can't be true, so it isn't true" was their motto. Despite all this his research was honest and rigorous. Although I'm sure he made mistakes, he never deliberately misreported his data or results. Sadly, he comitted suicide. Some suggest he was driven to it by the scorn, and venom heaped on him by those who refused to even consider what he found, prefering personal attack to reasoned discourse.

Tom

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Hi Kenneth,

I've been pondering the same problem now and then; here's the solution Francoice Gauquelin offers in her article "The Greek Error or Return to Babylon":

http://cura.free.fr/xxv/24app3-3.html

She claims that before Ptolemy astrologers considered the first house ending to the ascendant, not starting from it and offers some historical evidence to support her view. I find this very interesting.

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Hi Tom and others,

While I do agree with you that there are many factors to consider in a chart, my concern is that, like perhaps many others, you have been unduly influenced by the arguments of astrology skeptics to think that the Gauquelin discoveries are next to worthless, or apply only to the top ranks.

First discoveries normally start small, but then improvements are made. A skeptic would have considered the Wright brothers? first flight to be inferior to balloons because flying a couple of hundred feet is next to worthless. Edison?s first electric light was worthless because it burned out in half and hour. What good is that? Early aluminum was so expensive to produce that it had no practical value. The good thing about each of these discoveries is that the inventors, and the people who backed them up, did not listen to the skeptics.

Do you believe that astrology does not have any power to influence people and that no matter what good advice astrologers give, the percentages will always come out the same? I don?t believe that. If someone has found a consistency, even a small one, in highly successful people then I?m ready to support it and use it.

If I?m a soldier then I want my leader to have a prominent Mars because I want to win the fight. If I?m a general, then I would want to find a way to change the percentages in the leaders under my command for an advantage that will win the war. When it comes to the crunch, the small things matter and we look for them to help our intuition. As it turns out, airplanes *are* better than balloons and the people with vision knew that. Airplanes just needed more development, and the percentage of people traveling by airplane instead of by balloon testifies to this.

The view you have stated, which may be shared among many, is that g-sector planets are next to worthless. In the view of Knight and Lomas, the shekinah, which they link to bright rising planets, was believed by ancient people to be of monumental importance (literally) and enormous resources were used to capture its glory. Quite a contrast.

My view is that while the ancients might have gone overboard in their veneration of the shekinah, the shekinah is possibly connected to the g-sectors. In other words, the g-sectors may be a rediscovery of the shekinah. I am not an historian, but I wonder if the obsessive fixation on the powers of rising bright planets survives in ancient astrological texts, Hellenistic or earlier. It could lend credence to the g-sector findings.

KennethM
Last edited by Piper on Sun Apr 03, 2005 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hi Papretis,

Thanks for bring this important consideration into the discussion. It?s been a long time since I read that article by Fran?oise Gauquelin, and although I pondered it at the time, it must not have had a lasting effect and I tended to disfavor it. According to Lassen, whom she cites, the houses should be numbered in the reverse order than they are by current convention. She points out that this makes more sense because of the celestial mechanics and would be in line with pre-Ptolemaic, pre-revisionist Babylonian astrology.

Michel Gauquelin shows the diurnal sectors numbered in reverse order in his books. This would make the 12th house become the 1st house, which would allow the traditional meanings of the houses to support his findings.

I think I initially rejected this order of the houses because transits would proceed in reverse order and this seemed to make less sense when you consider the development and growth of the personality with regard to the meanings of the revised houses. Looking at this again, as you suggest, I?ll have to admit that it explains a few things in my own chart that I have long puzzled about. Maybe Fran?oise is right and I just didn?t see it before.

This might work even for transits and progressions. For example, as Tom has already pointed out, George W. Bush became President when Jupiter progressed to his IC, not his MC!

KennethM

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my concern is that, like perhaps many others, you have been unduly influenced by the arguments of astrology skeptics to think that the Gauquelin discoveries are next to worthless, or apply only to the top ranks.
Agreeing with the so-called sceptics does not mean that one is unduly influenced by them. Sometimes they have a point. I am not talking specifically about this case but I have noticed most astrologers are not willing to even consider any arguments made by sceptics because they think it means devaluing astrology. If I agree with the findings of the Gauquelin data might it not be because I have been unduly influenced by other astrologers who argue so vociferously for its worth? We should not be afraid to be critical of our own craft. In fact, it is essential that we are. If we accept the proper use of the word sceptic then we should all be sceptics. Some astrological theories are rubbish. We should be discerning enough to make up our own minds regardless of who says what.
The view you have stated, which may be shared among many, is that g-sector planets are next to worthless. In the view of Knight and Lomas, the shekinah, which they link to bright rising planets, was believed by ancient people to be of monumental importance (literally) and enormous resources were used to capture its glory. Quite a contrast.
I'm not sure that Tom was saying they were worthless. In fact, unless I have misunderstood him, he hasn't disagreed with, or devalued the findings at all. But I have to agree with him that it is difficult to see how they would fit into a practical setting. I don't believe statistics mean anything to the individual. The Gauquelin data only proved the Mars effect to a point. It proved nothing across the board. What does this data really mean? Astrologers get so excited that someone appears to have some statistical evidence showing something of astrological significance. But that is as far as most people get in their understanding of this data. How does it make a difference to the way I should read a chart?

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KennethM wrote:According to Lassen, whom she cites, the houses should be numbered in the reverse order than they are by current convention. She points out that this makes more sense because of the celestial mechanics and would be in line with pre-Ptolemaic, pre-revisionist Babylonian astrology.
KennethM
Hi Kenneth,

I don't think Francoice Gauquelin suggested that the houses should be numbered in reversed order, but that the numbering should go counter-clockwise as it does now, but so that the house that is now the twelfth should be the first, the first house should be the second, the second the third and so on. At least this is what I get from the picture on the third page of Gauquelin's article.

Rob Hand says that the ancients used whole sign houses to delientate the sphere of life where a planet operates, but the house system we now call Porphyry to define the strength of the planet.

I'm wondering that could it be that the ancients (before Ptolemy) actually considered the strongest places being after the axes (according to diurnal movement), not before them as we think now? And when they talked about cadent planets, maybe they were referring to a different thing and talking about those whole sign houses that don't make an aspect to the ascendant (sign) and are considered weak because of that, but not because of their relation to the axes?

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Agreeing with the so-called sceptics does not mean that one is unduly influenced by them. Sometimes they have a point. I am not talking specifically about this case but I have noticed most astrologers are not willing to even consider any arguments made by sceptics because they think it means devaluing astrology...We should not be afraid to be critical of our own craft. In fact, it is essential that we are. If we accept the proper use of the word sceptic then we should all be sceptics. Some astrological theories are rubbish. We should be discerning enough to make up our own minds regardless of who says what.
Liz Greene once said: "I don't believe they (the planets) impel, compel, dispel, or 'do' anything. They are simply signatures."

I believe that astrological signatures are correlative rather than causal. Correlations between configurations do not have a causative relationship nor do they represent a deterministic influence. Astrology is, therefore, non-falsifiable and unverifiable, but this does not invalidate it as a 'way of knowing.' It is not a modern scientific 'way of knowing,' its provenance is not amenable to absolutist statements or causal determinants, but this no more invalidates it as a 'way of knowing' than any other form of intuitive, creative engagement with the world around us. So long as our practise of a particular astrological discipline is internally consistent, why bother with statistical anomalies? They belong to an entirely different order of things.

I have always understood that a planet conjunct an angle from within a cadent house (within an orb of twelve degrees) carries the same influence as a planet conjunct an angle from within an angular house. I think this is traditional practise, I think even Margaret Hone wrote about this, so I do not see why this would necessitate turning the twelfth house into the first.