Rotating Wheels: What Aspects What?

[Jim Eshelman]

(The following letter by me appeared in the December 1974 issue of American Astrology. I no longer fully agree with the position I took on interpreting progressed aspects, but I think I raised worthwhile points - and what I now consider to be true manifests this behavior. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to fully articulating my new point of view on this, so I'll leave it unspoken for now, and leave you with good questions rather than good answers.)

Bravo, Russell Bartoli! His questioning mind and pen are the ingredients whence come critical astrologers.

One of the most critical questions, to my thinking, which Mr. Bartoli put forth in the September issue is that concerning the "promittor-significator" question. It is generally accepted, at least among Siderealists, that natal planets represent "inside" forces, or incidents, whereas transits symbolize "outside" forces, or accidents. The trend is to let transiting planets symbolize actual people imbued with that planet, much as they are used in horary astrology. Thus a transit of Jupiter shows a visit from Santa Claus, and by Mars an encounter with the law.

Mercury, for instance, governs one's ability to communicate and attract attention to oneself through his ideas. When transited by Mars, this is generally heated to a frenzy by someone else's impudence and lets flow with a surprising vocabulary, purely in Martian fashion.

On the other hand, encounters where you physically, rather than verbally, attack someone are frequented by Mercury's transits to natal Mars. Mercury transited Oswald's Mars on the day John Kennedy died, and William Hickman experienced the transit the morning he murdered little Marion Parker, just to cite two examples. It is not uncommon to find the Mars of a murderer or rapist configurated with the Mercury of his victim. It seems that there is a very definite pattern to who hits whom.

Yet the fly in the ointment comes when progressions are considered. In the above example let us call the natal planet the "base planet" to get away from those confusing terms, promittor and significator. It would be expected, would it not, that aspects of progressed Mars to natal Mercury would act like a transit of Mars to natal Mercury? The moving planet would be considered the trigger planet. However, things are just the contrary! In progressions, the natal planet is the trigger planet, and the progressed planet is the base planet.

This is readily demonstrated by a few cases, and if you share this with your readers, they can test it themselves. For instance, Hickman's progressed Mars sextiled his natal Mercury at the above-named murder. The case of George Rogers given in Garth Allen's column in the September issue is another good example. His pyromania was first caused by Neptune's transit to his natal Mars. Yet, it was progressed Mars which squared natal Neptune in turnabout fashion.

If you want things to be thoroughly confused, consider the transits: the Sun to natal Neptune aspect is common in murderer's charts at the time of the crime; but in Hickman's case it was transiting Neptune which opposed his progressed Sun. Do we have a rotating wheel of chairmanship, i.e., transit over natal, natal over progressed, and progressed over transit? (Just thinking aloud on this point, but perhaps it will set someone else's wheels spinning somewhere.)

We need to seriously consider just what natal, transiting, and progressed planets mean. I haven't even touched the question of natal vs. solar return (which is a form of transit) vs. progressive solar return vs. transits to solar return and PSSR vs. … ad nauseum. Natal planets must be the core of our urges, that is sure. Progressions are in some way the developments of those inborn desires and their current status in our psyche. They are more immediate even if more transitory. Transits were previously though (by me at any rate) to be the supreme Godhead, conditioning both natal and progressed planets; it seems possible, though, that they are conditioned by the progressions.

[Lance]

It would be expected, would it not, that aspects of progressed Mars to natal Mercury would act like a transit of Mars to natal Mercury? The moving planet would be considered the trigger planet. However, things are just the contrary! In progressions, the natal planet is the trigger planet, and the progressed planet is the base planet.

Hmm.... I'm under a very long progressed Saturn square natal Venus, and I'm pretty sure I was even married under this influence. This reads more like your description of a Saturn transit to Venus than the description of the Venus transit to Saturn.

I'm also in a long period of my life where I feel like friends are becoming fewer and more distant due to my own personal changes. Same read.

[Jim Eshelman]

Yes, I understand. This is why I led with the note:

I no longer fully agree with the positon I took on interpreting progressed aspects, but I think I raised worthwhile points - and what I now consider to be true manifests this behavior. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to fully articulating my new point of view on this, so I'll leave it unspoken for now, and leave you with good questions rather than good answers.)

[Lance]

lol.. Yes, I understand. Just seeing if I could encourage any further comments.

Thanks.