"Saturn's Burdens" (Garth Allen)
Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 6:07 pm
1963 March. Your Powwow Corner. "Saturn's Burden."
I misremembered what this Garth Allen article was about. It's about the relationship of Saturn to obesity.
He began by citing the seeming (but not actual) contradiction between Medieval correspondences of Saturn to "servant, serf, slave," vs. modern correspondences of "manager, accountant, mortgager, bill collector, legislator," etc. He confirmed there is no real conflict, merely the changing by society of the placement and valuing of various kinds of occupations and social functions. (Some old "salve, servant" ideas were now more the "public servant" idea, for example.)
"An interesting medical study recently published, however, shows that in the aggregate the old rule about Saturn's link with lack of attractiveness and economic privation still holds trues," he wrote. Researchers had just documented that obesity is seven times more common (especially among women) in the lowest socio-economic categories than among upper middle-class. This corresponds to Bradley's observation that, "charts of excessively overweight individuals are top=heavy with Saturn indices."
The Saturn link is that, "It is a matter of sloth and masochistic apathy, to compensate for real or fancied privations and limitations and domestic 'burdens,'" incident the Saturnian to overeat.
I'm not sure that his specific interpretations (or, rather, those he cited from the medical researchers) hold up against more recent research in obesity. However, treated as blanket facts - that there is this socio-economic link, and there is a similar link of Saturn in the charts - are valid. Some of the interpretation of "why" is surely correct, and some of it (including parts I haven't quoted) definitely is not.
He ends with a different report from the AMA journal, finding that obese people overall are, "less mature" and "more rigid and more suspicious" than people of more medically preferable weights. The former is not, to my mind, a Saturn trait at all, though the latter certainly is. "The burdens of Saturn," he concludes, "include more than just psychological heavy loads."
I misremembered what this Garth Allen article was about. It's about the relationship of Saturn to obesity.
He began by citing the seeming (but not actual) contradiction between Medieval correspondences of Saturn to "servant, serf, slave," vs. modern correspondences of "manager, accountant, mortgager, bill collector, legislator," etc. He confirmed there is no real conflict, merely the changing by society of the placement and valuing of various kinds of occupations and social functions. (Some old "salve, servant" ideas were now more the "public servant" idea, for example.)
"An interesting medical study recently published, however, shows that in the aggregate the old rule about Saturn's link with lack of attractiveness and economic privation still holds trues," he wrote. Researchers had just documented that obesity is seven times more common (especially among women) in the lowest socio-economic categories than among upper middle-class. This corresponds to Bradley's observation that, "charts of excessively overweight individuals are top=heavy with Saturn indices."
The Saturn link is that, "It is a matter of sloth and masochistic apathy, to compensate for real or fancied privations and limitations and domestic 'burdens,'" incident the Saturnian to overeat.
I'm not sure that his specific interpretations (or, rather, those he cited from the medical researchers) hold up against more recent research in obesity. However, treated as blanket facts - that there is this socio-economic link, and there is a similar link of Saturn in the charts - are valid. Some of the interpretation of "why" is surely correct, and some of it (including parts I haven't quoted) definitely is not.
He ends with a different report from the AMA journal, finding that obese people overall are, "less mature" and "more rigid and more suspicious" than people of more medically preferable weights. The former is not, to my mind, a Saturn trait at all, though the latter certainly is. "The burdens of Saturn," he concludes, "include more than just psychological heavy loads."