Full Natal Delineation Subject George S. Patton

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?Nobody ever defended anything successfully; there is only attack and attack and attack some more.? ? General George S. Patton

Long time readers of the Skyscript Forum know that I have this fascination with the chart of General George S. Patton junior (1885 ? 1945) along with a fascination for the man himself. I?ve read Ordeal and Triumph (Republished in 2000, but originally published in the late mid to late 1960s. The author died in 1980) by Ladislas Farago and, of course, seen the 1970 motion picture starring George C. Scott as well as picked up biographical information here and there. I even worked for a man who served in Patton?s Third Army in Europe during WWII. Although there are many biographies available and like all biographical works, some are better than others, the one I?m going to refer to mostly is Patton, A Genius for War by Carlo D?Este (1995). D?Este spends more time on Patton?s formative years and WWI experiences than other biographers who spend the bulk of their work on WWII. The reviews I?ve read pick D?Este?s book as the best of the lot.

D?Este observes that the bulk of the population born after WWII forms their impression of Patton from the 1970 motion picture starring George C. Scott. Scott was brilliant. I would rank his performance as one of the finest ever on film. The movie succeeded at the box office at the height of the anti-Viet Nam War protests, and as a result, many of that persuasion will refer to Patton as ?crazy? or ?blood thirsty? or worse. What they don?t know is that the technical director for that movie was General Omar Bradley a contemporary and a co-battlefield commander with Patton during WWII. They also don?t know that Bradley detested Patton, so some of what we see is through the eyes of a man who hated the subject of the movie. I doubt Bradley lied, or deliberately misled. He gave his honest assessment, but it is a strongly biased one, and it is one that D?Este and others found to be perhaps not totally inaccurate, but at least incomplete. It is also true that even a three-hour motion picture cannot fully capture everything or even most things about a life. Let?s see if astrology can do better.

George Smith Patton Jr
Nov 11, 1885
6:38 PM PST - 8 hours
San Marino, CA USA


Image
This is the usual given birth place. Patton was born on his maternal grandfather?s estate in southern California called Lake Vineyard. San Marino is located about 10 miles north of Los Angeles. It is one of the most affluent communities in California, which is saying a lot. It was previously known as San Gabriel Township. Whatever we call it this is the location of the Lake Vineyard estate, and Patton?s birthplace.

The Patton family is from Virginia. The immigrating ancestor was one Robert Patton who came from Scotland and settled in the US about 1770. They lived near Culpeper, Virginia; a community located about 70 miles south of Washington, DC.

Sixteen members of the Patton family served the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861 ? 65) and three died in combat, including Patton?s grandfather. The Patton?s ended up in California because of the devastation in Virginia caused by the war. Patton?s grandmother barely kept her children, one of whom would become George Patton?s father, from starvation, and managed to come up with enough good money (Confederate currency was worthless) to get what was left of her family to California.

Ironically, his own ?Blood and Guts? personality does not come from the Patton family, but rather his maternal grandfather, Benjamin Davis Wilson, was a pioneer, beaver trapper and trader, grizzly bear hunter, Indian fighter, justice of the peace, farmer, rancher, politician, horticulturist, vintner, real estate entrepreneur, and ultimately one of the great landholders in California. It was on ?Don Benito?s? Lake Vineyard estate that George was born seven years after the grandfather?s death. Patton not only physically resembled this man, but his attitudes were more reminiscent of him than the more genteel Patton?s of Virginia. You don?t mess with a man who willingly fights grizzly bears, an animal that can reach heights of 7 or more feet standing on their hind legs, and weigh up to 800 pounds. To make matters worse they are very aggressive.

A trite, but true astrological aphorism is that if something in the chart jumps out at you, it does so for a reason. It is important. We note in this map, using essential dignity as our guide, there isn?t a strong planet in the chart. The Moon, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn are all in detriment. The Sun has dignity by face and Mars is peregrine. Venus is the strongest planet in the chart in that she is in her terms and angular, but not in the same sign as the 7th cusp. There are two mutual receptions, but neither one is very helpful. The Moon and Saturn are both in detriment in each other?s domiciles, and therefore cannot help each other very much. The same is true for Mercury and Jupiter.

There are some subtle hints of potential for success in this chart, but we will come across them later in the delineation. But how do we define success? In cases such as Patton?s this is obvious. I?m reminded of Ronald Reagan?s answer to the question: ?What?s your strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union and the Cold War?? Replied the Great Communicator, ?Simple, we win; they lose.? The same is true for battlefield commanders. The successful ones win. We don?t have to like them. However, no one wins all the time. We?ll see those things, too, and in the end come to know, as best we can, a complex, extraordinary man, who overcame a handicap he didn?t know he had, that probably shaped him more than anything else.

Tom
Last edited by Tom on Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Temperament

I used the both John Frawley?s modified version of Lilly?s technique, and Dorian Greenbaum?s method. Frawley?s gives predominantly sanguine with melancholy a close second with a little choler and a little phlegm. Greenbaum?s method gives a predominantly melancholic temperament with some sanguine a hint of phlegm and no choler. From this we can say the sanguine and melancholy dominate. It matters little which one dominates as both are present in significant strength to make them noticeable at different times.

Both techniques show a lack of choler which is strange in a man known primarily as a warrior. In Frawley?s method we do have a choleric Lord ASC, and he is in square aspect with the planet of choler, Mars. In Greenbaum?s method Mercury occidental is melancholic even though he is in a fire sign, but as we will see choler was not natural to George Patton; a difficult Mercury was.

Frawley does not use the concept of almuten (aka almutem). Greenbaum does. Greenbaum does not use the Lord of the Geniture; Frawley does. This produces an interesting difference in that Greenbaum uses Mercury both as Lord ASC and almuten of the ASC and finds him more melancholic as he is occidental. Frawley uses the Lord of the Geniture and that happens to be Venus as he defines LoG, the planet with the most essential dignity that can act. Although the Moon has dignity by triplicity, she is posited in the 8th house and therefore ?cannot act,? even though she has a way out via Saturn with whom she is in mutual reception. She is also in detriment and does not make a good LoG. Venus is angular and herself accidentally debilitated by the opposition to Saturn, but she is trine her exaltation ruler, and although not considered warrior-like, she is the exaltation ruler of the MC. However, Frawley tells us Venus occidental is moist and in a cold dry sign this makes her slightly phlegmatic. The sign modifies, it does not change the essential nature of the planet.

Ibn Ezra has a method for determining the almuten of the chart, which is akin to Lord of the Geniture. I don?t know how to do this, but Solar Fire did it for me and not too surprisingly, Ibn Ezra tells us Mars is the almuten of the chart.

Still the lack of choler in the chart of man known for his choler is surprising; it should not be too surprising to discover most of his choleric persona was an act. As a youngster he was called ?Georgie? by his family. He was described as a sweet, adorable, delicate, and even sentimental boy (all sanguine words). As an adult he tried his hand at poetry now and then. It was pretty awful stuff, but in the strict sense it was poetry.

Melancholic is the earth temperament. It is the pragmatic side of the self. Think of a farmer who has to use his knowledge to overcome all sorts of natural obstacles he cannot control like terrain, weather, soil and market forces. He has to overcome these things in order to survive. Contemporary farmers use equipment, knowledge, chemicals, and business savvy to keep their heads above water. This is also the temperament associated with an excellent memory.

Without a good deal of melancholy and the will to persevere, it is difficult to see how anyone could overcome the difficulties presented by this chart. A choleric would become quickly and seriously frustrated with the lack of results and a phlegmatic might soon give up. Still he needs more than perseverance, but he gets help with the rest of his temperament. The sanguine temperament is that of the scholar or scribe. He is not physical like the choleric or melancholic or as emotional as the phlegmatic. He is likely to look to books for solutions to his problems and to express himself intellectually.

These are opposites, warm and moist versus cold and dry. As such we would expect some inner struggle in the native that will require a constructive outlet. Interestingly enough, the difficulties in the chart provide such an opportunity as we will see later on when we get more specific. For now we have at the foundation, a man with the persistence of a melancholic and the intellectual curiosity of the sanguine. These fundamentals will find their expression in the significator of the manners, which we will examine next.

Tom

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Hi Tom and others,

this sounds like it will be fun.
Tom wrote:Ibn Ezra has a method for determining the almuten of the chart, which is akin to Lord of the Geniture. I don?t know how to do this, but Solar Fire did it for me and not too surprisingly, Ibn Ezra tells us Mars is the almuten of the chart.
Ibn Ezra's almuten of the chart is calculated by taking the file hylegical points - Asc, Sun, Moon, the PoF and prenatal Syzygy - and calculating their compounded almuten by giving 5 points to the domicile rulers, 4 points to the exaltation rulers, 3 points to each of the three triplicity rulers, 2 points to the bound rulers and 1 point to the face rulers. Then additional points are given to the planets according to their house positions:
12 points to a planet in the 1st house
11 points to a planet in the 10th house
10 points to a planet in the 7th house
9 points to a planet in the 4th house
8 points to a planet in the 11th house
7 points to a planet in the 5th house
6 points to a planet in the 2nd house
5 points to a planet in the 9th house
4 points to a planet in the 8th house
3 points to a planet in the 3rd house
2 points to a planet in the 6th house
1 point to a planet in the 12th house.

Finally the day ruler gets additional 7 points and the hour ruler gets 6 points.

If mixing essential dignities, day/hour rulers and house positions sounds like mixing apples and oranges, there's another option, the Almuten of Chart by Omar of Tiberias which you can find in the Medieval Techniques [almuten.pag] page in Solar Fire. It's calculated similarly with the Ibn Ezra almuten except the house points and the day/hour points are left out. I prefer this method myself. It gives Mars as the almuten of the chart for Patton too (and overwhelmingly so!):
- Asc is in the bound of Mars
- the Sun in Scorpio is ruled by Mars by domicile and triplicity
- the Moon in Capricorn is ruled by Mars by exaltation, triplicity and face
- the PoF (reversed for nocturnal charts) in Aries is ruled by Mars by domicile and bound
- the prenatal Syzygy in 14 Scorpio is ruled by Mars by domicile and triplicity.

Sari

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If mixing essential dignities, day/hour rulers and house positions sounds like mixing apples and oranges, there's another option, the Almuten of Chart by Omar of Tiberias which you can find in the Medieval Techniques [almuten.pag] page in Solar Fire. It's calculated similarly with the Ibn Ezra almuten except the house points and the day/hour points are left out.
I was about to ask if one could drop the day and hour ruler from this calculation and Sari has presciently answered my question.Perhaps if too many factors are counted it increases the chances of getting an equal distribution.Given the result in this case it seems sound in practice IMHO

Matt

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Hi Tom and others,
For now we have at the foundation, a man with the persistence of a melancholic and the intellectual curiosity of the sanguine.
The temperamment seems to be melancholic. I took a method used by Henry Coley, and obtain the main temperament dry and cold, the second dry and hot, the difference is one point only. But the temperament is also a shape and the first do not correspond with her body. Patton participated at olympic games in Stockolm in 1912. Perhaps this is the effect of the chart s Almuten Mars, dry and hot, more than Saturn, so cold, in first house.

Dom

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The Significator of the Manners


Ptolemy calls this the Quality of the Soul (Robbins) or the Quality of the Mind (Ashmand). Either way it describes how the native will express his temperament. It is the next step of the natal reading. The short version of how to determine this planet is, assuming there is no dominant planet on the ASC, to find the planet that most engages Mercury and the Moon. These are the two qualities that make up the mind, the rational part (Mercury) and the imaginative, emotional part (the Moon). More often than not it is two planets. The astrologer has to use his own imagination as it is not always easy to pinpoint this planet and in rare charts nothing engages the Moon and Mercury sufficiently so we are stuck with Lord ASC. But this is astrology and we don?t want anyone to think there is only one way to do this. The following are the candidates using Patton?s chart as our example.

First we look at Mercury and the Moon by themselves. Neither Mercury nor Moon are in good houses, whether we mean mundane houses or signs. Both are in detriment and neither the 6th nor the 8th is a good mundane house. They don?t even behold each other. However the Moon is completely in sect, a nocturnal planet in a nocturnal sign, above the horizon in a nocturnal chart. The Moon is in hayz, a strong accidental dignity. Mercury is nocturnal in a night chart, but here is below the horizon, in a day sign. There are going to be mixed results here.

Next we have to locate the governors of the soul or our significator of the manners. Look for:


1) Any planet tightly conjunct the ASC and in the same sign as the ASC. If the chart has this, the search is over.

2) Any planet that is in tight major aspect to both Mercury and the Moon. This is relatively rare, but it happens.

3) The planet or planets that most engage Mercury and the Moon. Interestingly Ptolemy does not include the lights as possible significators of the manners. Mercury can be one, but not the Sun or Moon. It is here that we have to be creative and look for planets influencing the mind.

In Patton?s chart the Moon is ruled by Saturn, and Mercury is ruled by Jupiter. Can they work together in this chart? There is no connection with each other by aspect or reception so the answer is, ?no,? or ?not easily.?

Next look for exaltation rulers. Mercury has none, but Mars is the exaltation ruler of the Moon. Mars is also in mutual reception with Mercury. It isn?t a strong mutual reception, but this is contact with both planets. Furthermore Mars is in aspect to Mercury. Mars is also the term and face ruler of the Moon, so this is, unless and until we find others, a very strong candidate.

Of the remaining planets, Venus has no contact with Mercury or the Moon. Jupiter rules and is in mutual reception with Mercury; he is in the triplicity of the Moon. Jupiter is in the same sign as Mars, but they are nearly a whole sign apart. We?ll keep Jupiter in mind. Saturn is in the domicile of the Moon and has no contact with Mercury. I am disinclined to use Saturn, but Jupiter does fit even if we can?t find an immediate way to link Jupiter and Mars other than by sign. Mars will dominate, though.

So Patton will express his melancholic/sanguine temperament with Mars (no surprise there) and Jupiter, Lord MC. Ptolemy tells us that these planets:

When ? the governors of the soul ? are in their own or familiar houses or sects, they make the characters of the soul open, unimpeded, spontaneous, and effective ??
Mars is in sect; he is nocturnal planet, in a night sign, in a night chart, but below the horizon. Jupiter is a day planet in a night chart in a night sign below the horizon. These are mixed so some of what Ptolemy says above should be true. Patton was certainly not ?unimpeded;? he was anything but. However he was open, spontaneous and effective. Let?s get away from the astrology momentarily and look at the man.

Although not widely known in his lifetime, George Patton suffered from what we would call learning disabilities. D?Este calls him ?dyslexic.? Strictly speaking dyslexia means difficulty with reading. Today?s educators call this condition ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder. Dyslexia is part of it. But as one can imagine, if one cannot read, everything else becomes difficult, spelling, following directions, math, making logical connections etc. I?ll follow D?Este?s lead and use the words dyslexia and dyslexic.

Patton?s difficulty learning understandably led his family to believe little Georgie was ?slow.? He didn?t begin formal schooling until age 11, when his father forcibly took him to school over the protestations of his doting mother and aunt. School must be a nightmare for dyslexics. Imagine trudging off to the classroom and failing every single day. This becomes a more serious problem when the dyslexic is intelligent as Patton was. He knows he isn?t stupid, he just can?t prove it and each day brings more frustration and ridicule.

D?Este correctly points out that this difficulty and the resulting emotional trauma stays with the dyslexic throughout his life. He quotes an expert in the field, Dr. Harold C. Levinson:

?Most dyslexics feel dumb despite being smart ? Most often a dyslexic?s compulsion to succeed is motivated by an overwhelming desire to prove to himself and others that he is not really as stupid as he feels. Accordingly, the dyslexic disorder frequently serves as a potent stimulus to achieve, reflecting a desperate attempt to reverse the humiliating feelings of inferiority that are invariably deeper.


?Unfortunately, tangible success and peer recognition even adulation do not neutralize or eliminate s dyslexic?s feeling dumb. All too often, accomplished, even famous dyslexics merely feel that they have succeeded in fooling everyone around them, and that others are not truly aware of how inept they really are. They attribute their successes to chance, a lucky break, a fluke of nature.?

During his plebe year at West Point, Patton would admit in a letter to his future wife Beatrice that it was ?beastly hard for me to learn.?

What is the melancholic temperament if not persistent? And Patton would develop the lifelong habit of memorizing everything he could in order to pass his classes in his primary education, during the one year he spent at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and the four years at The United States Military Academy at West Point. In order to memorize one must read and Patton forced himself to read voraciously. I suggest the will to do these things comes from Mars as significator of the manners and to a lesser extent Jupiter. I also suggest that what Mars did is not as understandable without knowing the temperament. Mars provided the will; melancholy provided the persistence.

Mars also tells us something else of vital importance to young Patton. Mars is located on the IC in a Mercury sign. Georgie grew up listening to the heroic exploits of the Patton family particularly in the America Civil War.

Summary


Patton has a melancholic/sanguine temperament with Mars as significator of the manners with some assistance from Jupiter. He is dyslexic and comes with all the baggage that condition imparts. He overcompensates by exerting enormous willpower to try to excel in his studies, in order to prepare for the day he will join the ranks of his military ancestors whom he worships. If ever there was an astrological chart whose difficulties had to be overcome, it is the chart of George Smith Patton.

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I was taught to consider the speed of Mercury and the Moon and it looks like Mercury was quite fast that day. Not sure if it was Ptolemy though and I do not my Loeb edition to hand

Matthew

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Well I have found one source for planetary speed. Rereading from Gjiada's website "Rules for Judgement" by Conrad Rauchfuss 1578. There are four rules to assess strength of planets and the fourth is "if they are additive ie not retrograde & swift". He seems to be a Ptolemy fan though.

Matt

italics mine

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Fixed Stars

I?m leaving for a vacation to Florida Friday, and I thought I?d look at the fixed stars in Patton?s chart before I left. We?ve noted that this is not a strong chart and that the native must have worked very hard to achieve prominence with so many astrological things going against him. Yet for astrology to have any value there must be something to show the potential for prominence in the chart otherwise how could we recognize the potential of the native? The fixed stars in this chart give us something to work with ? quite a bit in fact.

The ASC is conjunct three stars Alnilam (1 degree 26 minutes), Bellatrix (1 degree 5 minutes), and Capella (10 minutes). The MC is conjunct Fomalhaut (1 degree 31 minutes). There is something to be said for keeping the orbs to a degree or less, but that is pretty limiting particularly for Fomalhaut. And there is also the possibility that the birth time is off by a little bit, so I?ve stretched my orbs along with my thinking.

Alnilam: ?Fleeting public honors.? Public honors, yes; fleeting ? no. Yet the native?s public honors are for deeds done in a relatively brief period. I don?t think this is particularly accurate or helpful. It is said by Ptolemy to be of the nature of Jupiter and Saturn, and Robson tells us that stars of this nature make the native ?dignified, pious, conservative, acquisitive [and] retentive.? This is very general and to this we must add the nature of the individual star as well as what it affects. Robson also cautions us to take the entire chart into consideration. With Mars as significator of the manners, we must remove a certain amount of reserve from the above. With a melancholic temperament ?retentive? and acquisitive will be accurate. And Patton was pious, praying daily on his knees. This is a second magnitude star.

Bellatrix: ?It gives great civil or military honor, but danger of sudden dishonor, renown, wealth, eminent friends and liability to accidents causing blindness and ruin. If prominent in a woman?s map it makes her loquacious and shrewish, and gives a high-pitched, hard and sharp voice.?

I had to include the last sentence because Patton had a high-pitched voice that he hated. Most of us will think of him as George C. Scott who had a deep gravelly voice, standing in front of this huge American flag speaking to the troops. Patton did speak to the troops before battle, but the speeches were short because he thought his voice undermined his image as commander.

He married a woman who came from a wealthy and prominent Boston family. His own family was reasonably well off, but his father struggled to keep up appearances. Early in his military career Patton made a lifetime friendship with then Secretary of War Stimpson, and he was very close friends with Dwight Eisenhower when Eisenhower was his subordinate, although Eisenhower would eventually pass Patton in rank and eminence. Patton (and his father) worked the system from the time George was admitted to West Point all the way to his appointment as General.

Finally Patton would die as a result of a jeep accident in December 1945.

Capella: ?It gives honor, wealth, eminence, renown, a public position of trust and eminent friends, and it makes its natives careful, timorous, inquisitive, very fond of knowledge, and particularly of novelties.?

In addition to reinforcing Bellatrix, there are a few things here that a consulting astrologer could work with. Patton was not timid, but he was plagued with self doubt, and apprehension is a good synonym for ?timorous.? He planned everything, so ?careful? is probably more accurate than his reputation. He was fond of military knowledge and the tank was a novelty when he was a young soldier.

Fomalhaut: This is a formidable star and having it on the MC is an indication of a potential for accomplishment. ?It is said to be very fortunate and powerful and yet to cause malevolence of sublime scope and character and change from a material to a spiritual form of expression.?

?If rising or culminating. Great and lasting honors.?

Patton was a spiritual man. He believed in re-incarnation even if his understanding of the concept was a bit superficial. He believed his purpose in life was to lead a great army in a great victory. ?God will not allow this to happen!? thundered George C. Scott as Patton reflecting on his being kept on the sidelines during the D-Day invasion. Whether Patton actually said that or not, I don?t know, but I?d bet that he thought it.

The prominent fixed stars have given us something to work with. In other words, if we were the consulting astrologer, without the fixed stars we wouldn?t expect that young Georgie Patton would achieve such prominence. We would probably work with the Mars and Venus and probably hope for the best, but the stars show us potential for accomplishment.

When I come back, I?d like to discuss the pre-natal eclipse and from there we can look at major events in the life.

Tom
Last edited by Tom on Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hi Tom ... this is an interesting experiment. The first thing that jumped out at me, in looking at the chart is Mars conjunct the IC in an almost partile opposition to the MC and a fairly tight square to Mercury, it's dispositor.

Gemini on the Asc, an air sign, indicates his primary motivation is a desire for freedom of expression but Mercury is weak, being cadent in the 6th and will need help to fulfill the desire. Mars is the planet most ably placed to assist Mercury.

It is strong being in an angle (4th), has dignity of term and face in the Asc degree, has dignity of triplicity in its own place (being the participating triplicity ruler of Virgo) and by being square it's dispositor (Mercury) whom it overcomes by being in the 10th from Mercury. According to Bonatti, Mercury in contact with Mars indicates the native "will know how to produce an army, arrange it, deploy it, will know how to strike with lances, swords, claws and other harmful weapons."

Mercury receives Mars by domicile so he co-operates fully with Mars agenda but Mars does not receive Mercury; he has no interest in Mercury's agenda. Mercury is also trapped into running with Mar's agenda since Mars rules the 6th, the house Mercury occupies; to get what he wants he has to work through Mars methods. The square adds intensity and excess.

This will apply in his career as well as his life as Mars opposes the MC and Mercury is square the MC. By analogy, Mars in opposition to the MC would give military honors accompanied by obstructions and denials. Mercury square the MC would give honors for oratory, writing, etc. However, Mercury has no dignity in the MC while Mars has dignity of triplicity so once again, Mercury's best chance to obtain what he wants is through Mars.

Jupiter, Mercury's dispositor, is of little help even though it is strong (angular) and the two are in each other's signs, they are not in aspect. They are also both in their detriments and so would tend to bad effects; a debilitated Jupiter would be more likely to give him an exaggerated or irrational philosophical or religious bent and increase a debilitated Mercury's anxiety.

The Mercury/Mars contact also increases the choleric; while Gemini i warm and moist, Mercury in Sag is made hot and dry, square Mars, adds hot and dry. As no other planet is in a Ptolemic aspect with the Asc or Mercury, the hot and dry predominates.

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Hi Jane,

Really nice work. Thank you.

The first thing that jumped out at me, in looking at the chart is Mars conjunct the IC in an almost partile opposition to the MC and a fairly tight square to Mercury, it's dispositor.
Yes this is a classic example of the rule: "If something jumps out at you right away, it does so for a reason. If we ignore Mars because of lack of essential dignity or some other reason, and just look at the temperament or ASC ruler, it would only be natural to think, "Where is the warrior?" But keeping an eye on Mars, even if we don't know who the native is, becomes very revealing.
Gemini on the Asc, an air sign, indicates his primary motivation is a desire for freedom of expression but Mercury is weak, being cadent in the 6th and will need help to fulfill the desire. Mars is the planet most ably placed to assist Mercury.
Again he suffered from dyslexia, which caused a great deal of frustration.
According to Bonatti, Mercury in contact with Mars indicates the native "will know how to produce an army, arrange it, deploy it, will know how to strike with lances, swords, claws and other harmful weapons."
Bonatti certainly got that right. I was drawn to my own Mercury Mars opposition, but both are retrograde, maybe that's why I never led an army.
a debilitated Jupiter would be more likely to give him an exaggerated or irrational philosophical or religious bent and increase a debilitated Mercury's anxiety.
Exaggerated is probably correct. He was not irrational philosophically or religiously.
The Mercury/Mars contact also increases the choleric; while Gemini i warm and moist, Mercury in Sag is made hot and dry, square Mars, adds hot and dry. As no other planet is in a Ptolemic aspect with the Asc or Mercury, the hot and dry predominates.
We have to dig for the choler, but it is there if we know where to look. Thanks again Jane - great work.

Tom