Another Example of Reception

1
At the risk of beating a dead horse on when reception can help or not, here is another example.

Here is the data:
Date: January 22, 2006, at 12:05 PM, EST, Falls Church, VA.

The question is whether that trine between Venus and Mars shows perfection. Mars is in its detriment, while Venus has dignity by triplicity but is retrograde, so both are weak. But there is strong mutual reception. Mars receives Venus by exaltation, while Venus receives Mars by sign and triplicity. That?s quite a lot of reception and the aspect is a trine, but I am not at all sure if that shows perfection or not. Mars is also in the ASC which Lilly says is a sign of perfection, with or without reception.

I don't know if this helps, but Mars and Venus are planets that are naturally friendly to each other.

Still with Mars in detriment and Venus retrograde, that's a mountain of weakness to overcome.

On page 184 of Christian Astrology, Lilly talks about how reception affects the malefics, Mars and Saturn, which here he calls ?evil planets?.
?if the Lord of the Ascendant? is joyned to an evill Planet, evill disposed, without reception; or if he be not ill Disposed, but joyned to an Infortune, and he ill disposed, and receive him not, it prenotes the destruction of the thing quesited.
Lilly defines ?ill disposed? as a planet that is either peregrine, in its detriment or fall, combust, retrograde or cadent.

I read Lilly?s advice here as meaning:

If a Planet (A) is joined to a malefic (B), perfection does not happen when:

- Planet A is peregrine, in its fall or detriment, retrograde, combust or cadent.
- No reception with the malefic

Or when:
Planet A is NOT peregrine, in its fall or detriment, retrograde, combust or cadent
Planet B, the malefic, is peregrine, in its fall or detriment, retrograde, combust or cadent.
Planet B does not receive Planet A


The way I read Lilly, he would not disallow perfection, but he?s not saying that it will perfect either.

If I had to guess, I'd say this one is on the edge. It either means perfection comes with "with wearinesse and much solicitation" as Lilly says, or that it's close to happening but doesn't.

Any thoughts, oh most wise audience?
Mark F

2
Hi Mark,

I'm a bit confused by a couple of things. I'm not sure what you mean here by perfection. Is this an event chart or are you trying for an election chart? I wouldn't think it is the best electional chart. The Sun is in detriment, Mercury is about to enter combustion, or already is, depending on your idea of combustion :), Venus is retrograde, Mars in in detriment, Saturn is in detriment and retrograde and the Moon is in via combusta.

Bonatti says that a planet that is retrograde is unable to hold on to any virtue given to it and therefore has to return it. But the planet to which the virtue is returned must be strong enough to hold onto it otherwise it can end up being weakened by the return. He says that if the planet receiving the returned virtue (Mars in this case) is on an angle then this planet will benefit from the returned virtue. I'm not sure that the reception between Mars and Venus is enough to overcome their weakened states. If this was a horary, depending on the question, I would say that the situation being asked about will happen but that it is not necessarily a good thing. But, obviously, this is not a horary.

3
This is an election chart that is related to a horary chart. A neighbor contacted me and asked me to help her interpret her horary chart, the time of which was December 11, 2:02 AM, in Falls Church, VA. The querent is separated from her husband and decided to do a little bit of investigation over at the place where he?s staying. When she got there she found all these dog tracks in the snow and she assumed that her husband had recently had a visit from this other woman who always brings her dogs over. She had thought that her husband was through, or was about through seeing this other woman. I kind of questioned her logic about what a set of dog tracks meant, but she was sure about it. The first thing I noticed about the chart was that the Moon was in the 7th house ? she was over at her husband?s new place, and that Mercury, which rules the 12th house had just barely separated from Venus. I thought that this showed that she had just found out something secret and not good, the signs that she thought that her husband was still seeing this other woman. She said that her husband was not at home but was out of town so there was no big fight between them. And she asked the neighbors the next day and they said that the other woman was over the day before but that she left before the husband went out of town, so she assumed that the other woman didn?t go with the husband on his trip.

Her question was how long will he see this other woman, but of course the implied question was would they get back together. There are no kids here, thankfully. If her husband is Mars, then it?s a pretty reasonable assumption to make that the other woman is Jupiter, given the applying aspect by opposition and reception. I think that those aspects by opposition with reception can show a kind of ?fatal attraction? where there is strong attraction but it?s not good for either person. But before Jupiter and Mars perfect their opposition, Jupiter will first be square with Saturn, then Mars will square Saturn, and only after that will Jupiter oppose Mars. Whatever Saturn is specifically, it usually is an obstacle, and it rules both the 4th and 5th houses. So I told her that these two want and will try to get together, but that they will probably be blocked by something. I couldn?t say if they?d be blocked by another person, or by events but it didn?t seem likely that these two would last as a couple. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I felt pretty sure about that.

So what about her and her husband? Venus is applying to an out-of-sign square with Mars, but way before they perfect Venus turns retrograde. Venus then becomes combust the Sun, then becomes conjunct Mercury and only after that reaches a trine with Mars. I thought this showed that she is heading towards a fight (that square) with Mars, but she chooses not to argue with him and instead she backtracks (retrograde) and takes a different course that will lead her to try to reconcile with her husband. I wasn?t at all sure that a trine between retrograde Venus and Mars in detriment would show a good outcome and I told her that. I did tell her that right at the present time, with Mars receiving Venus by exaltation and Venus receiving Mars by sign with no aspect between them, that there still is a lot of mutual interest here and that?s always a good sign.

A few days after this she came back to me and told me that she wanted to give her husband some time to himself, and that she wouldn?t contact him for a few weeks and she asked me to see if I could find a good election time in January for them to have a talk. The best that I could come up with was the chart I first posted, on January 22. I came up with another possible election using Mercury and Jupiter, on January 13, ?06, but both were peregrine and Mercury was in the detriment of Jupiter, and there was no reception really. So given the time constraints that she asked me about I came up with the January 22 date.

On a purely academic level I also was trying to figure out how to apply the rules hat Lilly gives on pages 184-186 of CA, like I said in my first post. Lilly says that if an applying aspect with a malefic, in this case Mars, is first prohibited by another planet, that this actually takes the bad mojo from the malefic and instead of prohibiting the aspect it actually helps it.
... ever considering whether any Planet doe cut off the light and vertue of the Significators before their perfect Conjunction with an evill Planet; if such a thing happen, it hinders not, but that the matter may be perfected and accomplished

CA, page 185
I kind of think that given the bad situation of a broken relationship that if this works, it will just barely work. But what else can one expect from this kind of situation? It?s not likely to expect that they are going to heal whatever it is that?s between them right away.

As far as this election goes, would changing the time to 11:26 AM help? That would move Venus from the cadent 9th house to the angular 10th house. Mars would still be angular in the 1st, but wouldn?t be so close to the ASC itself. I kind of like that change myself now that I see it.
Mark F

4
I didn?t know about virtue being bounced back and forth, I think this is why I never get it right in my horaries :-cry

Well, always something new to discover :brows

MarkF, I don?t know if you have considered it, but it seens there is some ethical and practical issues here. The ethical is that if this woman is separated from her husband, she has no right to ask about his rendez vouz. The practical issue is that in this cases the solution is always to shoot the messenger, so I wouldn?t get too close to this stuff.

Yuzuru

5
Yuzuru,

I hadn't really thought about any ethical issues really and I don't think they apply here. In some questions I have got some kind of gut feeling that says that the situation is too emotional or too explosive for me to get involved. I didn't get that feeling from this one. I know the woman pretty well, her husband less so. These aren't overly dramatic people. I was a little concerned about her midnight trip over there, and her insistence that a set of dog tracks could be interpreted so conclusively, but at my distance it is a little it funny in a Sherlock Holmes sort of way. Given the nature of the situation, they could all be acting a lot worse. I would like to see a good outcome here, but I'm just a sucker for a happy ending.

Is there anything I have missed here?
Mark F

6
I was just a little worried... people seems to get all "psycho" during divorces and start to look at midnight to a trail of dog tracks in ex husbands house, and when you see people are boiling each others bunnies...
In this cases, the ethics considerations help us not to get stuck in others peoples non resolved business :lol:
I will try to see the actual chart a little and see if there is anything new
Y

7
I didn?t know about virtue being bounced back and forth, I think this is why I never get it right in my horaries
Yuzuru,

This is just Bonatti's way of looking at it. I haven't really considered the return of virtue much myself. I think the important thing is to recognise that if a planet is already weak, obtaining virute from another planet won't necessarily give it the strength to overcome its weakness.

8
MarkF, I don?t know if you have considered it, but it seens there is some ethical and practical issues here. The ethical is that if this woman is separated from her husband, she has no right to ask about his rendez vouz.
I don't agree with Y in this instance. I think a woman who is still married to her husband has every right to inquire about his whereabouts or his doings. After all, it's not like he's a mere acquaintance![/i]

Obviously the question has great emotional energy behind it. (Look at the time it was asked: 2 a.m.!)

In my opinion, the best horary questions arise when a person has a deep desire to know the truth about a situation because it affects that person significantly. This certainly qualifies.