Out of Bounds Mercury

1
Its funny that whenever Mercury is retrograde the internet is awash with astrologers writing about the subject and describing its mundane effects.

However, I have hardly, noticed a reference anywhere to the fact Mercury went out of bounds on November 9th and will stay so until the 7th of December.

If you need a recap a planet is considered out of bounds is when its declination is beyond the outer bounds or limits of that of the Sun, i.e. greater than 23 degrees and 27 minutes of declination, either North or South. The energies of these planets are alleged to be a little out of control, stretched, or over the top during these periods.

Many mundane astrologers do note when Mars is out of bounds but I think its interesting to note the inner planets too to observe their effects. Declination is a subject that I think needs a lot more attention generally.It is after all the third dimension of astrology. For example, the declination cycle of the secondary progressed Moon is a very useful tool for mundane as well as natal charts. I might demonstrate that in a later post if time permits.

For now though any thoughts about what this out of bounds Mercury in Sagittarius might be associated with?

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

2
hi mark,

you have talked of out of bounds planets before, but i am not really up on it all, as i haven't followed it! i know you recommended a book on this topic too, which the title escapes me...

i am not a huge fan of mercury in sag.. seems prone to faulty judgment and sloppy with details.. maybe the out of bounds feature pushes it over the cliff with certain individuals? on the other hand, the position might make for the eternal optimist and the world can benefit from that at this point!

i found this link which seems informative.. i have no basis for knowing how relevant the out of bounds planets are..

https://www.astronumerologywisdom.com/o ... anets.html

3
Thank you for posting that interesting article James. Although I do look at declination sometimes I have never heard of "out of bounds".

Just to clarify Mark, could you tell me whether these examples are "out of bounds" from my own chart :-

Venus 25 degrees north 44 07
Uranus 23 degrees north 35 15
Pluto 23 degrees north 47 10

Thanks.

4
thanks vicki,

i believe on that link, there is a page which shows the dates where the planets are out of bounds... i will have to go check again, but i was looking at that too just yesterday, so it is out there on the net, if not connected to that link i shared yesterday... take a closer look and let us know! thanks..

i stand corrected!!!!

here is a link where you can answer your question vicki.. i was looking at this yesterday too..

https://cafeastrology.com/outofboundstablesdates.html

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Sorry guys I had that link and several others I could have put up for you. I didn't realise out of bounds planets would be such a novelty for some of you! I agree The Cafe Astrology website is really handy for a quick glance ephemeris of annual OOB planets. For those looking to do a bit of historical research they also have tables of declination going back to 1930.
https://cafeastrology.com/DeclinationsEphemeris.pdf

Vicki wrote:
Just to clarify Mark, could you tell me whether these examples are "out of bounds" from my own chart :-

Venus 25 degrees north 44 07
Uranus 23 degrees north 35 15
Pluto 23 degrees north 47 10
Yes Vicki. They are all out of bounds. As I wrote in my first post above:
If you need a recap a planet is considered out of bounds when its declination is beyond the outer bounds or limits of that of the Sun, i.e. greater than 23 degrees and 27 minutes of declination, either North or South.
Considering how long Pluto and Uranus can spend in OOB declinations (especially Pluto) I personally wouldn’t give them much significance for natal work. But I would still look at it for mundane analysis of longer trends. Jupiter is very rarely OOB so I think it is interesting to examine those periods. Saturn and Neptune never go OOB.

Natally, I would mostly focus on the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. Although its interesting to see if there are OOB outers too.

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Thu Nov 16, 2017 9:25 pm, edited 5 times in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

6
Karen Christino wrote a couple of interesting posts on the Secondary Progressed Moon by declination in the charts of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump before the last Presidential election. Trump's SP Moon was rampant and out of bounds North at the time while Clinton's Moon was heading south by declination. Its a pity Karen Christino didn't put more faith in this technique. She later concluded a Clinton win was more likely due to SPs to the US (Sibly chart)

http://karenchristino.com/election-2016 ... clination/

http://karenchristino.com/election-2016 ... nation-ii/

In a post-election post Karen Christino reflected on her prediction with the following comments:
Trump’s progressed Moon Out-of-Bounds: This is a powerful progression, but I limited its interpretation in Trump’s chart in response to Hillary’s inability to gain the presidential nomination in 2008, when she had her own Moon beginning to progress OOB.
Generally, I have never been that enthusiastic about Secondary progressions as a predictive tool. The SP angles generally used are actually primary directions and the SP Sun and Solar arc Sun are the same. Even its advocates often acknowledge the SP Moon is more about inner states than outer events. However, the SP Moon by declination is an exception. Its does seem a powerful tool to assess the upward and downward cycles in someone's life overall. Also it can also be utilised without a timed chart which was a particular asset in the last US Presidential race with Clinton's birth time so controversial. Karen Christino certainly identified that the SP Moon by declination cycle was far more favourable to Trump than Clinton in late 2016.

It was actually Reinhold Ebertin who first pioneered the display of planets declination cycles in this way in his so called graphic ephemeris.

Here is a link to Steven Forrest's site who gives guidance on how to calculate the SP Moon Declination cycle with different astrological software:

https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/ ... ounds-moon

There aren't actually that many books on declination or out of bounds planets. In the early 90s, Kt Boehrer became an influential pioneer in a generating interest in declination when she published her book, ''Declinations, The Other Dimension'', which presented 20 years of research on the subject. Kt Boehrer was the first astrologer who first coined the phrase 'out of bounds'. Leigh Westin’s very precisely elucidated book, ''Beyond the Solstice by Declination'', followed in 1999. More recently, we had ''Declination in Astrology: The Steps of the Sun'' by Paul Newman which was published in 2006.

Steven Forrest has written extensively on this subject in regards natal astrology especially the OOB Moon.

https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/ ... ounds-moon

Tony Howard has written these pieces on OOB Venus and Mars respectively.

https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/ ... -of-bounds

https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/ ... than-anger

This article by Paul Newman shows the links between the declination of the Sun and traditional techniques like Antiscia.

http://www.astrologer.com/aanet/pub/jou ... inners.htm

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

7
thanks mark,

i sure wish the declination data was readily available on all charts that get displayed... it is a 2 step process to see it on my software program.. these charts that get posted here at skyscript from most of the websites completely ignore declinations.. oh well... and then there are those fancy 2 or 3 dimensional charts that were discussed in the general thread.. i suppose one can see it better there, but i like looking at the declination data in numerical form..

my question is a general one.. this kind of goes with the idea of north declination being more favourable then south... it is a bit like planets on the north node being considered more favourable then on the south... i have a lot of reason to question that, but in the case of the moon - southern declination is essentially moving south down thru scorpio and cap signs and then back up over aries and north again towards cancer.. i can see how the moon in a north declination would be considered more favourable from this vantage point...

i am really mixed on out of bound planets.. not having studied it, i can't really comment, but then i haven't studied the placement of isistranspluto, so i could be accused of being unfairly biased because i haven't studied that either... we all have to choose our spots to study, as opposed to thinking we can cover all the various options available in astrology to cover...

8
James_M wrote:
I sure wish the declination data was readily available on all charts that get displayed... it is a 2 step process to see it on my software program.. these charts that get posted here at skyscript from most of the websites completely ignore declinations.. oh well... and then there are those fancy 2 or 3 dimensional charts that were discussed in the general thread.. i suppose one can see it better there, but i like looking at the declination data in numerical form..
Well its very easy to find the declinations on solar fire or astro.com come to that. and SF shows the OOB planets in a different colour! You may be right about the difficulty displaying that page on the forum though. However, there is the graphic ephemeris.

James_M wrote:
my question is a general one.. this kind of goes with the idea of north declination being more favourable then south... it is a bit like planets on the north node being considered more favourable then on the south... i have a lot of reason to question that, but in the case of the moon - southern declination is essentially moving south down thru scorpio and cap signs and then back up over aries and north again towards cancer.. i can see how the moon in a north declination would be considered more favourable from this vantage point...
Although Karen Christino and some others have promoted this idea that OOB N is good and heading to OOB S is unfavourable that doesnt tally with some political charts I have examined. Perhaps it depends on whether the natal placement is itself N or S of the Celestial equator?A different view is that when the SP Moon by declination is at either side of OOB or at zero declination these represent significant episodes in our lives.

James_M wrote:
i am really mixed on out of bound planets.. not having studied it, i can't really comment, but then i haven't studied the placement of isistranspluto, so i could be accused of being unfairly biased because i haven't studied that either... we all have to choose our spots to study, as opposed to thinking we can cover all the various options available in astrology to cover...
I think it is a useful addition to our toolset. But with personal OOB planets in that phase for weeks,months or even years in the case of outers this is not an incredibly personal factor in a nativity. It could be compared to say an inner planet by sign or retrograde motion. Still, I do think it can give us added potential to delineate a planet in a chart. For example we have out of bounds Mercury in the charts of the reformation reformer Martin Luther and the pioneering astronomer/ astrologer Johannes Kepler. Alan Turing the father of modern artificial intelligence also had an out of bounds Mercury. As does our current Pope Francis. In itself its only a small part of the astrological picture but I find it a useful one. However, lots of charts have no OOB planets but still have strong parallels of declination between the planets that give us a different insight into a chart.

Personally, I think the concept of OOB planets has a very logical astrological philosophy based on astronomical reality. It may not have been conceived by the ancients but declination certainly was. In fact the observation of the planets by declination long precedes the development of the zodiac and our obsessive focus on the ecliptic. It is a recorded fact that ancient sites from the Paleolithic into the bronze age involved the solar ingressess and solstices which are fundamentally about the Sun's declination. Similarly, we know that many ancient sites were aligned to the 18.6 year declination cycle of the Moon which some marking lunar standstills every 9 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_standstill

Your right of course we cannot use every astrological technique out there. I like fixed stars and use the dwads. You like midpoints and minor aspects. But I certainly dont think OOB planets is a quirky or eccentric notion. In terms of astrological symbolism it makes perfect sense to me at least. And you will note I am certainly not one to adopt every passing innovation of modern astrology!

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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sorry for skipping over things here mark.. susan and i are out on long beach-tofino... i too am unconvinced of the merits of sec progs... placidus thought them up as i understand.. he was unhappy with profections.. but with regard to declinations, i think they are very relevant, so i need no encouragement with them.... howver, the out of bound concept seems like a newer extension off them.. have some oob with yer declinations, lol.. maybe.. i wont rule out there may be some merit in using this distinction.. thank you again for bringing up the subject...

10
Hi James,

If you go to Solar Fire-Reports and then Declination you get a report you can display here. Here is Albert Einstein's chart.
Image

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

11
thanks mark,

i was aware of that... however, i bet you were unaware i usually run ubuntu on this dual boot computer with a bastardized solar fire, which ordinarily can't be run on linux! now, i could reboot it and get the data, but really, i continue to wait for a smarter version of flatangle or morinus which can show it all on one page, via LINUX! i might be waiting a while..

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So this last year I tried to weave Eclipses and things like Declination into my High Level Top Down Rolling Mundane Analysis.

My feeling is that both need to be watched but don't always deliver as they should.

Further, like other Commentators, I found it hard to bring them into my Analysis Method.

I even bought some graph paper and plotted them that way.

H