STUDY - Decanate study - U.S. Presidents

[Jim Eshelman]

I have never been impressed with the value of decanates. This was solidified in 1980 when Tom Shanks and Michel Gauquelin gave me a stack of computer-generated statistics of the Gauquelin professional and character trait data according to Sidereal signs and, since it was already in Tom's program, broken down be decanate. The decanates just didn't stand up to statistical scrutiny. They were non-starters.

This doesn't mean there were no decanates showing in the statistically significant range. There were. In fact, there were individual decanates that showed very statistically anomalous results, with Chi-square values for the set sufficiently high to suggest that the highs and lows weren't random anomalies within the data set. However, these were not convincing for two reasons:

(1) The decanate positive results were few, and didn't follow any recognizable pattern, e.g., any that were high in a given set didn't share a planetary or zodiacal pattern anyone had proposed.

(2) The statistically anomalous results were nearly always readily traceable to another cause. Most often, spiking Sun decanates would be reflecting something else about a Mercury or Venus placement (which necessitated that Sun be concentrated in certain narrow areas).

For example, Sun and Venus spend the majority of their time about 40° apart, just as Sun and Mercury spend most of their time about 18° apart. For the character trait idealist, Sun spiked high for one decanate in Scorpio and one decanate of Capricorn, neither of which made sense by themselves. But both of those decanates were about 40° from different parts of Sagittarius, and it turned out that Venus in Sagittarius was uniformly high throughout the whole sign, and appears to be the actual factor that was scoring high for idealist, not the individual Scorpio and Capricorn decanates for Sun.

Anyway... I've never had serious cause to revisit the matter after that.

But, today, I have a few hours and want something to occupy my mind, so I thought I'd see if any of the three main decanate models produces anything interesting in Sun positions of a smaller but valuable data set: the collection of 44 men who have, to date, served as President of the United States.

First, is there any large bias in decanate distribution within the signs? 10 have Sun in first decanate of the signs, 22 in the 2nd decanate, and 12 in the 3rd decanate, so there is, indeed, an unusual distribution - half of all the cases being in the central decanate. I have no idea what, if anything, this means, but I mention it.

As an idle aside that might interest someone, the 2nd decanate of Libra has 4 Presidents' Suns, rather than the expected 1. The 2nd decanate of Virgo has 3.

By simple sign occupancy, Sun is most frequent in Aries and Virgo , and least frequent in Taurus, Cancer, and Aquarius. If Aries and Virgo represent the most presidential traits, and Cancer and Aquarius the least (followed by Taurus and Leo), one might think we would see similar preferences replicated in decanate symbolism if there is any significance to the scheme.

[Jim Eshelman]

A modern model assigns decanate attributes according to Triplicity, which the 1st decanate of each sign having its own decanate, and the other two having successive assignments of the other two signs of the same triplicity. For example, the three decanates of Virgo are attributed, respectively, to Virgo, Capricorn, and Taurus.

For 44 events in 12 categories, the expected occurrence on each is just 3 to 4 (3.67 exactly). Because of the way these are evenly distributed around different parts of the zodiac, expected frequency is close to even, so (for something of this size) we're sufficiently close if we treat them as even. Demographic factors such as seasonal birth rate and Sun-sign predominances will make this a little uneven.

The tabulation is:

TAU - 3
GEM - 1
CAN - 2
LEO - 7
VIR - 4
LIB - 2
SCO - 3
SAG - 2
CAP - 5
AQU - 7
PIS - 5
ARI - 3

There is a striking preference for the Leo-Aquarius axis, where 14 occurrences fall (one-third of all the examples). This might seem appropriate for U.S. Presidents, were it not for the fact that we know that only low numbers of Leo and Aquarius Suns occur in the same set (11%). We take note of the anomaly, but remain skeptical.

[Jim Eshelman]

The Chaldean model reported by Ptolemy attributes planets, not signs, to the decanates. These are in the sequence Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon but with an irregularity: Aries begins with Mars (mid-series), and thus Pisces ends with Mars (which is thus doubled in that one pair of adjacent decanates).

Roughly 1/7 should fall to each planet, with a slight bump to Mars. To be more precise, Mars "rules" 17% of the decanates, and all the other classical planets "rule" 14%. For 44 events, the expected occurrence on each is about 6, and this should be impervious to other factors meaningfully distorting it.

The tabulation is:

MOO - 3
MER - 4
VEN - 6
SOL - 9
MAR - 7
JUP - 2
SAT - 13

These numbers are... interesting. There are, indeed, large divergences from what is expected by pure chance. They are symbolically interesting and draw attention, yet are inconsistent with other ways the planets show predominances in the data set.

Saturn spikes high and Jupiter bottoms out. While Saturn (more than double what's expected) and Sun (50% above what's expected) make sense in terms of political power, authority, and the burdens of government, the near absence of Jupiter is inconsistent both with Jupiter being frequently foreground for these men, and Jupiter's increased angularity in the locality charts for Washington.

It's... interesting.

[Jim Eshelman]

Manilius, in his Astronomicon, gave a model for the decanates that is identical to a straight 3rd harmonic chart. It goes like this: Aries gets Aries, Taurus, and Gemini for its three decanates, then the zodiac continues around, with Taurus picking up with Cancer, Leo, Virgo, etc.

For 44 events in 12 categories, the expected occurrence on each is 3 to 4 (3.67 exactly). It's diversified evenly enough around the zodiac that other factors aren't going to have a strong hand in displacing these probabilities for this sample size.

The tabulation is:

TAU - 6
GEM - 3
CAN - 1
LEO - 6
VIR - 5
LIB - 1
SCO - 7
SAG - 2
CAP - 5
AQU - 3
PIS - 2
ARI - 3

This is probably the most interesting of all, so far. Three of the four highest ranking signs are hubs - the missing one being Aquarius, which has had almost no U.S. presidents. Cancer is negligible, as in the full zodiac. Libra is also almost absent, which is not as true of the real zodiac.

But it's hard to discount (theoretically) those Scorpio and Leo peaks, even when they are at odds with the full sign distribution. The signs most characteristic of military force and royalty are not at all out of place.

In this model, Scorpio decanates all occur in the Gemini-Libra-Aquarius triad, which is not overly represented in the data, and Leo decanates all occur in Taurus-Virgo-Capricorn, which is also not overly represented (Virgo is a peak sign, Taurus tied for last place, Capricorn average), so a schematic bias is not triggering these.

I am inclined - totally on a whimsical, theoretical basis - to say that, if any model of decanates actually has value, it is this one.

[Jim Eshelman]

It is worth examining a modified Manilius model, based on the theory that Taurus is the first sign of the zodiac. In such a model, Taurus' 1st decanate would be assigned to Taurus, and the rest would flow around from there, which means we just have to roll everything back 2 signs from the prior tabulation.

This means that the Scorpio and Leo peaks fall in Virgo and Gemini. Though Virgo is tied for first place in normal Sun-sign placements, Gemini is not common. These are both Mercurial signs, but that doesn't really contribute anything meaningful that is otherwise reflected in the data.

[Jim Eshelman]

The specific Presidents with the Leo-Aquarius decanate Suns in this model are:

LEO:
James Monroe
Millard Fillmore
James Buchanan
Ulysses S. Grant
Benjamin Harrison
Richard M. Nixon
Bill Clinton

AQUARIUS:
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
James K. Polk
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Warren G. Harding
Gerald R. Ford

Lincoln was an Aquarius Sun anyway, and Roosevelt is the only other figure in the second list that is arguably of an Aquarian nature. Clinton and Harrison were Leo Suns anyway, and at least this list has Nixon and Grant as arguable fits. (In both cases, I'm seeing the seeming fits as destiny more than character.)

Not a strong or persuasive showing overall.

[Jim Eshelman]

The Saturn, Sun, and Jupiter decanate presidents (by this model) are:

SATURN:
John Adams
James Madison
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk
Millard Fillmore
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Theodore Roosevelt
Warren G. Harding
Richard M. Nixon
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
Donald Trump

SUN:
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
William Henry Harrison
Zachary Taylor
James Buchanan
Ulysses S. Grant
William Howard Taft
Gerald R. Ford
Ronald Reagan

JUPITER:
John Tyler
Lyndon Baines Johnson

Draw your own conclusions. I'm not quite in the head space to assess these lists with full biographical particulars. The Saturn list is particularly hard for me to assess pro or con.

[Jim Eshelman]

The Scorpio and Leo decanate Suns, by this model, are as follows. While Scorpio and Leo are easier to assess positively categorically across presidents in general (as a concept), I'm not sure the majority of the individual aspects lives up to the symbolism. For example, there are strong and imperial presidents here, and also a lot of wimps.

SCORPIO:
George Washington
John Adams
James K. Polk
Theodore Roosevelt
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
George W. Bush

LEO:
Rutherford B. Hayes
Chester A. Arthur
William McKinley
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
James Earl Carter