Planets & Somatyping (Garth Allen)

[Jim Eshelman]

"Garth Allen" devoted the April 1961 installment of his "Your Powwow Corner" to W.H. Sheldon's theories, describing the types and, at the end, proposing some planetary attributions. Sheldon appears to have impressed Bradley quite deeply - references to his approach already appear in Solar and Lunar Returns and appeared frequently in Bradley's writings from early on through the end of his life. Inspired by this, I read Sheldon's very thick fundamental treatise on his work while I was still in high school and kept for decades, in my primary astrological notebook, typed out lists of fundamental character traits of the three types, which I had noted as primarily Saturn (or Mercury), Jupiter, and Mars types most transparently.

In this thread, I will summarize the April 1961 article which, I believe, was simply an effort by Bradley to put Sheldon's model in front of people so that more people could begin working with it and developing astrological correlates.

[Jim Eshelman]

Astrology owes it to itself to take account of the fundamental classification of personality given us through the researches of modern constitutional psychology. With an individual set off and scaled against his physical and temperamental structure, as endowed first by heredity and then modified by environment quite independently of extraterrestrial influences, interpretation of his astrological lot becomes a systematic, thoroughly enlightening technique.

He emphasized that what distinguished Sheldon's work from every other human characterological typology all the back to the humors of Hippocrates was that earlier approaches were "constructed without a statistical basis." With the evolution of statistical sampling methods in the 20th century, this could change and "theories stand or fall by the sheer weight of numbers." Sheldon's work was "to contribute to science the first complete and consistent taxonomy which was well founded by statistical technique," a "universally applicable trichotomy for the gauging of physique and temperament."

That is, the research proved that every individual may be placed on a threefold scale, both physically and temperamentally. The Sheldon project found no two-way, no four-way, no twelve-way or other n-chotomy into which people may fall. There are three components in physique and temperament - and it behooves astrological devotees to recognize this fact and explain it in terms of their own constructions. In some ways, the Sheldon research may be called disappointing to astrologers. Still, upon extended investigation of the records, an astrologer comes away convinced that the Sheldon work provides astrology with the key to therapeutic workability we have sought. Our own concern at the moment is to bring to our readers an initial rundown of the subject.

Sheldon's work first isolated "three components of physique," and body types "nearly what we mean in common speech by fattiness, muscularity, and leanness," more precisely characterized by Sheldon as endomorphy, mesomorphy, and ectomorphy. Everybody has all three components, but one or two are more dominant. (Sheldon's team came up with a point system to score it. I remember the original work being filled with photographs of how to take physical measurements of someone's body to determine the ratios, i.e., somatyping a person.)

The three categories refer, respectively, to a predominance of development of the viscera (internal organs, especially abdominal), or skeletal-muscle system, or nervous system.

If the somatype is strongly endomorphic, the digestive viscera is comparatively large and greatly developed, although the rest of the body inclines toward weakness. Endomorphic people tend to be fat or at least fleshy, due to the relatively highlighted function of their digestive systems.

If the somatype is strongly mesomorphic, the individual's skeletal and muscular structures are dominant in the body. The emphasis in the mesomorph lies in his strength, relatively tough skin, and highlighted circulatory system.

Should he ectomorphic component predominate in the physique, fragility and slenderness appear to keynote the individual's constitution. The chest tends to be flat, and because the visceral and muscular system are diminutive, the sensory tissue of the nervous system has the greatest exposure to the environment. The nervous system is therefore the highlighted factor in ectomorphy.

...there is a high degree of correlation between physical and temperamental types. The individual whose temperament does not align with his bodily type is exceedingly rare.

Since astrology traditionally gives physical descriptions side by side with character descriptions, astrologers should find this particularly interesting!

In applying these astrologically, he cautioned,

It is important not to form a shelf-like partition of the astrological doctrine to accord with a pattern as indicated scientifically, but to learn what sign and house positions of the planets, together with their mutual aspects, makes for prepotency on the behalf of the components of temperament.

[Jim Eshelman]

...the viscerotonic temperament has a focus in the digestive system. The viscera is the organs of assimilation and digestion, or, putting it coarsely, the innards. The muscle, bone and blood vessels, then, are the focus of somatotonia. The complex network of the nervous system which seems governed nd centered in the brain... is the focus of cerebrotonia. Coarsely speaking, the carcass is the central concern of somatotonics. The head, it follows, is the primary consideration in cerebrotonia.

Viscerotonia is the motive to appease the appetites through the taste buds and gut. The viscerotonic lives for comfort, to ingest and assimilate food. He is deliberate in his actions, seems to take life easy and is content so long as his natural needs are satiated. Viscerotonia revolves around the axis of physical satisfaction. Viscerotonics live to serve the tastes in one way or another, prefer featherbeds and upholstery, and have the between-meal-snack habit.

Physically, their viscera is over-developed so that middle age usually finds them with a protruding abdomen. In lower social levels we find them basking lazily in the sun or hammock. At higher levels of society, we find them as pursuers of "nice things," and as sophisticated gourmands. [They] prefer lassitude to action, comfort to intellectual pursuit.

The viscerotonic is the mainspring of social life; he has a direct need for the approval and affection of others in order to be happy. He makes meal-taking a social occasion, chews his food well, and does not bolt from the table after dessert. Relaxation is the keynote to his spare time. Tolerant of others, and able to fall kittenlike into a deep sleep soon after retiring, viscerotonics are also wholesomely shallow on such matters as religion and politics. They do not become fanatic in their devotion to causes the merit of which have arrested their fancies. Sexually, the viscerotonic is plastic... "polymorphous perverse," in that their range of psychosexual attention is like that of a child which does not draw too sharp a line between preferences. More expressly, Viscerotonia is akin to what... Freud called oral-eroticism.

[Jim Eshelman]

While viscerotonia manifests extraversion of its own traits through smoothness of emotional flux and an easy communication of feelings, somatotonia is in many ways its opposite... Where the first object of viscerotonia is the love of physical comfort, somatotonia's drive is toward physical adventure. The somatotonic lives for the sheer experience of moving about, doing things, and flexing his anatomy.

The true somatotonic has a powerful build for his size - it fairly sparks with muscular and bony friction... "Tarzan" is the fictional somatotonic par excellence, for there is always an assertiveness of posture and motion evident in somatotonia. While the viscerotonic enjoys the pleasures of the table and chair most of all, the somatotonic requires and thoroughly enjoys his exercise, as his forte is energy. (Exercise is here meant not work but activity. The somatotonic despises restraint, so cannot be said, on the whole, to love work for its occupational sense.) Unlike the viscerotonic who is politely ceremonious and wishes rather to enjoy the affection and esteem of people, the somatotonic has a desire for the domination of others - a love of power, as well as of risk.

Not squeamish when out in the open, the person whose temperament is decidedly somatotonic cannot bare [sic] confinement. He does not like the corners of rooms, closets, or valleys. His voice is unrestrained, and his general "noisiness" (in speech, in step, in grunts, coughing, nose-blowing, snoring, and the like) seems offensive at times. He usually appears older than he really is, and this apparent (physical) overmaturity cuts down on his actual span of life. He seems mentally calloused and is quite indifferent to pain. In fact, injuries sustained from exercise, combat and "in the lie of duty" are rather liked, in the boastful sense. Eating, to him, is not a social function. While possessed of a most hardy appetite, and intent upon eating much of the time, he is not flavor-conscious, gulps down his food hurriedly and leaves the table when no ore is forthcoming.

Somatotonia is what Carl Jung originally intended to mean by his introduction of the term extraversion. Viscerotonics are generally extraverts, although it is their own viscerotonia which they extravert in daily life. And in Freudian psychology, we find somatotonia to be related to what is called urethral-eroticism (phallic-eroticism in male, and clitoric-eroticism in females).

[Jim Eshelman]

Restraint is the keynote of cerebrotonia, for when this component dominates the individual scheme, there is an obvious restraint to the voice, posture, and sociability. The carriage of the body while in motion seems stiff and tight as though the joints needed lubrication. Generally lean, the cerebrotonic seems unable to put on extra weight through diet change, appears flat-chested, and has a rather poor posture (as judged by the somatotonic standard which the present era in civilization maintains as ideal). There is a slump to the shoulders, rather disconcerting to the dissimilar observer.

While seated, the cerebrotonic allows his spinal column go curve convexly, and prefers a somewhat higher chair than average (the viscerotonic likes low, accommodatingly curved chairs, the somatotonic a low and level seat). He often tips the chair backward, thus allowing more support to the middle of his back, and to raise his feet completely off the floor is a common habit.

Loving privacy, the cerebrotonic has distinct inhibitions when he coms to social mingling. His manner of speech and apparent inability to make a handshake seem convincingly sincere give strangers a frequent bad first impression of him. Cerebrotonics, because of this inhibited social address, are not cut out to be salesmen or public relations agents. Their forte is behind-the-scenes creative work. Even while youthfully intent in both social approach and general appearance, the cerebrotonic is never really at ease in gatherings and to require hi to be assertive before an audience is little short of an emotional catastrophe in his self-conscious soul.

Try as he may, the individual in whom cerebrotonia is strong finds it well-nigh impossible to follow a routine, as he has an innate resistance to habit-formation. He eats when he is hungry, not because it is the conventional hour, and to demand that he follow a schedule is to tax his ability to be cooperative. The unpredictability of his behavior is the bane of his success - the cerebrotonic simply must have freedom from regimentation or supervision in order to be productive.

...we find a psychological overintensity in the lead. The person so constructed is alert and observant, but seldom snoops into (a viscerotonic trait) or interferes with the affairs of another (a somatotonic trait). He has peculiarly fast reactions, both of the nervous and emotional sort. It is difficult to "read his mind," however, for cerebrotonia's restraint extends into the inner life as well as surface personality. This inherent secretiveness of emotional inhibition causes the cerebrotonic to be universally suspected of one thing or another by natives of the visceral and somatic populations (pillars of society, salt of the earth, they call themselves) who cannot understand the workings of cerebrotonia.

This, of course, is the organic root of anti-intellectualism, of politicians' fear of eggheads, and of society's frantic effort to get everybody married off and hence "settled down" to the point where independent thinking loses its power to disrupt the status quo. The black sheep of the family is usually a poorly adapted cerebrotonic. In the Freudian psychosexual scheme, cerebrotonia stands as the true type of the anal-erotic character.

[Jim Eshelman]

Garth Allen doubted that there would be found a one-for-one match of this typology to astrological factors (what he called "a fixed system universally adaptable"). My own observations are that there certainly is not a simplistic one-for-one - that the three types move through the full range of astrological factors (luminary signs, angular planets, and aspects) that comingle in a full horoscope.

He reiterated that his purpose in the article was to turn astrologers on to the system and help them rightly orient to it, especially to assist an astrologer in distinguishing a person's genetic traits from their horoscopic traits. He observed that "people with different genetic backgrounds will react differently to the same [astrological] influences." He asserted that horoscopic analysis :should be based upon the native's 'type' as determined by heredity," the astrological understanding sitting atop the physically inherited disposition, i.e., the somatypes.

As a preliminary proposal of astrological linkage to this, he wrote,

...let us assume that natal influences either amplify or modify the genetic type. The genetic type may be thought of as the species which is qualified by birth influences into a variety.

Aligning planets with the type, he noted that Moon is hard to classify, "probably because the Moon mirrors the entire glandular network of anything living." He then broke the other planets down as follows, saying they are "easily pigeon-holed":

Viscerotonic: Venus, Jupiter, Neptune, "for they conduce toward relaxation, conformity and ceremony"
Somatotonic: Sun, Mars, Pluto, "inclining toward assertiveness, activity, and adventure"
Cerebrotonic: Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, "for their tendency is toward restraint, spontaneity, and self-consciousness"

He concluded with a hope for the student:

With these generalizations in mind, now see if your own chartwork doesn't brighten up both in interest and workability.

[Jim Eshelman]

My only serious disagreement with his typology is that Moon seems to be quite easy to categorize. One of its basic characteristics being its orientation to appetites, it seems quite viscerotonic to me. As someone with only Moon on an angle, I recognize the viscerotonic side it gives me - which nothing else primary in the chart really conveys - to play off against my Virgo-Aquarius cerebrotonia.

I also think his categorization of Pluto comes from too early an assessment, before much that we now take for granted had been sorted out. For example, Pluto's introversion is perhaps its most marked trait, and this is quite at odds with the classically extraverted somatotonic.

My own (probably excessively cerebrotonic) categorization doesn't vary much from Bradley's but is more rounded by acknowledging that the three types commonly blend, it being even more common to find two of them sharing prominence and the third heavily suppressed, than to find something approaching a pure type. I offer the following FWIW. (I recognize all sorts of minor problems with it, e.g., Uranus clearly has cerebrotonic characteristics that my list doesn't acknowledge.)

VISCERATONIA, Jupiter, Neptune.
Visceratonia + Somatonia. Venus.
SOMATONIA. Mars, Uranus.
Somatonia + Cerebrotonia. Pluto.
CEREBROTONIA. Mercury, Saturn.
Cerebrotonia + Visceratonia. Moon.

THE SUN is the meeting place of character and physiology, the synthesis within which these exist.

[Danica]

I find myself to be primarily cerebrotonic; his description of the character traits connected to this somatype are right on the mark (that's an understatement; I'm fascinated again and again by Bradley's words on my natal factors, oftentimes in shock by feeling totally standing-naked, personally-intimately-known, by this dead astrologer from previous century ) virtually everything except what he says about social interactions - Venus-Jupiter on angles tips the scale of that to opposite direction.

[By Jove]

I'm pretty much a cerebrotonic through and through. I do notice how somatyping has some resemblance to the four/five classic temperaments.

CEREBROTONIA (Mercury, Saturn) - Melancholic or Supine; shy, introspective, sensitive, neurotic etc.

SOMATONIA (Mars, Uranus) - Choleric; aggressive, risk-taking, need for adventure, powerful and domineering etc.

VISCEROTONIA (Jupiter, Neptune) - Phlegmatic or Sanguine; convivial, seeks pleasure and comfort, even tempered etc.

I also classified the signs along these lines a long time ago according to their classic ruling planets.