Mental Health and Learning Difficulties in Nativities

1
I noticed a recent thread on the traditional forum where people were discussing mental health issues and indeed a possible degenerative brain disease as if these were astrologically synonymous.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7175

I confess this is a subject I have yet to do any in depth research on. Still I wonder if it isn't possible to detect nuances in mental health issues? In other words might different conditions have different astrological signatures?

If we look at models used by modern psychiatry such as DSM there seems to be a very wide variety of conditions defined.

In the thread I gave the link for above the questioner seemed to be asking about a degenerative brain disease common in the elderly (dementia). Can we assume this has an identical signature to other mental health conditions such as Schizophrenia? I decided to open a thread here as I am not convinced traditional sources can help us pick between the subtleties involved if there are different astrological signatures.

Here are some conditions people can suffer from under the label of mental illness or brain diseases.

Schizophrenia
Bi Polar
Clinical Depression
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD
Anxiety disorders such as Agoraphobia, PTSD
Compulsive hoarding conditions e.g Diogenes syndrome
Personality disorders-eg Anti-Social, Narcissistic
Autism/Asbergers syndrome
Degenerative Brain Diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Dementia, Motor Neurone disease

Then there are people with learning difficulties that are genetic such as Downs Syndrome.

Has anyone detected any different signatures for these quite distinct conditions? The general line seems to be to look at the condition of Mercury, the Moon and ASC but can we go a bit deeper than that? I am not expecting the astrology to fit the DSM categories(!) which themselves are controversial. However, I wondered if there might be sub categories we could detect astrologically.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

2
Hi Mark,

I've often wondered about this and other things such as drug addiction and other addictions like sex. Timing it would be another issue as well. I'd think the triplicity lords would be useful.

I had a theory abut drug addictions being signified by Saturn/Venus combinations to the Lot of Spirit but I no longer view the Lot of Spirit as the "mind" which can be addicted to such substances. That leaves us with the ASC and the Moon and Mercury, as you say.

I'd think for mental health, looking to the sections on demon possession and utterances from the gods as being useful if we do look to traditional texts but looking at Rheotrius here, he just gives almost Indian Yoga-like combinations, most involving Saturn and Mars afflciting Mercury without the benefics intervening.

I'd think temperament would also be a good place to start. I'd be interested in getting some charts together and figuring some things out.

Muhammad Ali (http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Ali,_Muhammad) is one who comes to mind as he has developed Parkinson's Disease which was diagnosed when Saturn took up the times in the Decennial system. Saturn is afflicting both the Moon and Mercury (the former of whom is also the ASC and Fortune lord in a Sidereal zodiac) and also the Lot and the ASC itself. I'm sure you''ll agree that Saturn will be most harmful to Ali's health because of this and his elevated position at night.

Just with a quick search of Astrodatabank using "Parkinson's Disease", I came across this, the chart of Kenneth More (http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/More,_Kenneth). He also has Saturn afflicting both the ASC and the Moon and Mercury as well as Fortune. If we take the 9th house to be a place capable of business, the Decennials beginning from the Sun also have Saturn taking up the times when this man was diagnosed (the late 70's as far as I can make out from here: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46460797).

Hardly conclusive but they seem a good place to start for this particular form of illness.
http://www.esmaraldaastrology.wordpress.com

3
It's hardly a database, but I have at least three charts in my private files of people who have been or are about to be diagnosed with ADHD, and there are certain points of similarity. For privacy reasons I can't give the data, but here is what I've observed:

Chart 1: diurnal, sidereal Leo rising (tropical Virgo), Sun in the 8th closely square Moon in the 5th and Saturn in the 11th.

Chart 2: nocturnal, sidereal Leo rising (tropical Virgo), Sun in the 5th square Saturn in the 8th and Moon in the 2nd. (Saturn and the Moon are close by degree; Sun is a little further off, but first applies to Saturn.)

Chart 3: diurnal, sidereal Leo rising (tropical Virgo), Sun in the 9th conjunct Saturn, opposite Mars in the 3rd and square Moon in the 12th. The benefics (in the 8th and 10th) are in aversion to the Sun and the malefics. This is by far the most troubled person, with multiple diagnoses.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

4
Hi Mark,

Your post seems to voice many problems which I have faced in the past in identifying known 'Psychological disorders'. In 2011, I had to make an analysis of a person who was suffering from 'Autism', In order to make myself more aware I read literature concerning 'Autism' and analysed 7-8 charts of people who had autism. The signature I noted was some weakness of Mars which was weak as well as negative (negative aspects) along with weak 2nd house. But it seems that 'Autism' covers many variations with common feature of non-adjustment (social behavior) and deviation from accepted norms of stage wise development of mind.

I was also taught that Mercury and Moon have to do with mind and its workings but perhaps they refer to abberation and fluctuations of a normal mind and not abnormal mind.

Mercury in Pisces and Mercury in Sagittarius is a weak mercury. One should expect some mercurial weakness, instead the people I know have very very fast reading speed and they appear to retain the material, whereas people with Mercury in Gemini etc read slowly.

I also noted that people with weak mercury were actually very intelligent but they made lot of errors of common sense and judgement in their personal lives, they were susceptible to gossips, suggestions, and believing rumors whereas people with strong mercury had average powers but a lot of common sense.

I also noted that it was difficult to hypnotize people with weak mercury. Whereas they could hypnotize others easily.

Perhaps weak mercury indicates that the mind abhors the logical step-wise thinking process.

I noted that people with weak mercury can not tell a good lie (they are caught), perhaps in order to make a successful lie, one has to think of plugging many loopholes.

Moon, in my experience, relates to emotional health and is related to emotional diseases, whereas Mercury relates to mental diseases.
Regards

Morpheus

https://horusastropalmist.wordpress.com/

5
Horatio wrote: Mercury in Pisces and Mercury in Sagittarius is a weak mercury. One should expect some mercurial weakness, instead the people I know have very very fast reading speed and they appear to retain the material, whereas people with Mercury in Gemini etc read slowly.
I've noticed a similar thing. I have Mercury in Gemini myself and whilst I wouldnt' say I was a slow reader, I'm slower than some people I know with Mercury in Pisces (though not sagittarius).

I don't think that the essential dignity of Mercury relates to intelligence as much as clarity of thought or expression. I do find that those with Mercury in Sag or Pisces can sometimes muddle up what they're saying from what they're actually meaning, or struggle to describe a situation along a given defined timeline without jumping all over the place. I also noticed that Mercury in Sag in particular seems to have trouble with certain linguistic 'rules' or grammatical issues and general details of a text being read. So whilst there can often be a speediness to what is read I do not agree that there is better retention. In fact I think that Mercury in Gemini tends to win here, but this can be deceptive as usually the Mercury in Pisces person can reiterate what is read, though when questioned further not necessarily fully understand between several distinctions of differences (in other words retain a gist but not necessarily technical details).

I am not a fan of planets out of dignity being indicative, in this case, of unintelligence, rather than their natural mode of operation tends to incline them to struggle with things pertaining to details, clarity of thought and comprehension of technical material. That said, I don't think any of this is something that a person with any planetary placement could not work on to get the most out of it and keep a check on their natural tendencies - hard work can pay off. I do find many with Mercury in Pisces and Sagittarius can struggle with the sequitor thought process like you say though.

I have not noticed it with Pisces, but with mercury in sagittarius I've also noticed a lot of people with early reading difficulties or dyslexia or something similar. In fact it became so prevalent that nearly everyone I noticed had Mercury in Sag had or still have some reading or learning disability, though most appeared to grow out of it by their teens. In some cases it was that they only started to read properly much later or struggled to 'form the images' in their mind at a young age. It's something I would love to see some statistics on actually.

I realise these are all static sign placements so this is, as usual, taken with a "all else being equal" kind of attitude. But generally I think any debilities like this are mitigated by greater consciousness of inherent weakness in given areas.

I've no idea about hypnosis though so that's an interesting idea.

6
My speculation is that, in addition to the testimonies mentioned, the attention should be paid whether the malefic afflicting Mercury and/or Moon and/or ASC is just a malefic (sect or out-of-sect) or it has some other roles in the chart, such as the lord of preceding full or new Moon, eclipse; it seems to add fatality.

The Moon's phase should be vital here; in my opinion, new or full Moon should be the most vulnerable.

The stakes of Mercury's house/exaltation should be checked.

It seems that the affliction has also something to do with transsaturnians (in particular Uranus or Pluto)

7
Hi Paul,

Thanks for your comments, insights and observations. Noted for further experimentation.

Experiments for reading speed were conducted with different people at different times. I have a standard test which helps in calculating reading speed and percentage of comprehension (MCQs).

About Hypnosis, a group of people (who did not know how to hypnotize) with strong and weak mercury were selected and they were given initial lectures regarding Hypnosis. Their performance was checked after one week. Weak Mercury hypnotizing Strong Mercury and Strong Mercury hypnotizing weak mercury. The time for hypnotizing was close to Noon. The suggestion used was...

You are feeling sleepy (said many times) and would fall to sleep within stipulated time..

Maybe, weak mercury has pretty and soothing voice (asks for another experimentation) :)
Regards

Morpheus

https://horusastropalmist.wordpress.com/

8
Horatio wrote:Hi Paul,

Thanks for your comments, insights and observations. Noted for further experimentation.

Experiments for reading speed were conducted with different people at different times. I have a standard test which helps in calculating reading speed and percentage of comprehension (MCQs).
Likewise, and I should add that I have no such standard testing, just something I observed.

I am hesitant with this as I'm aware that confirmation bias may be leading my results. I am a Sun in Gemini with several Gemini planets and, perhaps because of some synastry, I tend to interact with a lot of Sagittarius types, including Mercury in Sagittarius. I could literally be just noticing this as I see so many and may have a predetermined bias as to what I might expect from them. Just a caveat as I've not done anything extensive on this, it's purely circumstantial.
About Hypnosis, a group of people (who did not know how to hypnotize) with strong and weak mercury were selected and they were given initial lectures regarding Hypnosis. Their performance was checked after one week. Weak Mercury hypnotizing Strong Mercury and Strong Mercury hypnotizing weak mercury. The time for hypnotizing was close to Noon. The suggestion used was...

You are feeling sleepy (said many times) and would fall to sleep within stipulated time..

Maybe, weak mercury has pretty and soothing voice (asks for another experimentation) :)
I wonder if it is to do with concentration and attention. Perhaps strong mercury listens clearer and more readily - more directly into their mind, and weaker mercury does not? Perhaps there is less concentration on the voice and what is being said? It would be interesting to examine this idea as well perhaps?

9
good question mark.. i am not sure how much you can fine tune it astrologically and based on what i have read of the trad lit, that doesn't cover or even touch on these modern psychiatry terms - bipolar and etc. etc.


i fall back on my statement in the thread your cite - moon and mercury are the two bodies to keep an eye on.. that said, i do think any of the outer planets can impact the rest of the chart in a destabilizing manner, not to mention saturn.. of course i use aspects that many others around here seem to ignore - the 45 and 135, so i will see the saturn 45 the moon in Jean-Pierre Divoire's chart as having significance, while a more superficial read of the chart a person might only consider the moon/pluto conjunction.. one could fall back on the mars/mercury square in his chart as well, as both planets associated with the mind - mercury and moon, are latched onto the malefics.. the fact is there will be charts of a similar nature that don't express such a deranged life and on the surface he seemed to function in a way that worked until he was found out, regardless of the poor mental state he would have to be in, in order to do what he did..

i am not convinced the ascendant has to be involved, but since folks will use aspects purely by sign - mars is in taurus while the rising sign is cancer, and therefore there is a connection to the rising sign it must say something on his mental health too.. i personally don't do astrology this way and need to see an aspect connection that involves more then a ptolemaic aspect by sign.. but that is me.

i have looked at a number of charts with these thoughts in mind.. i know a number of bi-polar and asberger types in the musical field i work in.. more of them seem to be drawn to music and can be quite good at it too.. music is another form of communication that serves as a better outlet perhaps for a mind that thinks in a different manner. one passing observation i had on bipolar was jupiter in opposition aspect with other planets, especially saturn, but my work is not on a statistical level of proof.. i have also noted a higher frequency of the sign virgo rising in autistic examples but that might also be just a coincidence.. interesting thread.. thanks for continuing with where we left off on that last thread..

10
Paul wrote: I've noticed a similar thing. I have Mercury in Gemini myself and whilst I wouldnt' say I was a slow reader, I'm slower than some people I know with Mercury in Pisces (though not sagittarius).

I don't think that the essential dignity of Mercury relates to intelligence as much as clarity of thought or expression. I do find that those with Mercury in Sag or Pisces can sometimes muddle up what they're saying from what they're actually meaning, or struggle to describe a situation along a given defined timeline without jumping all over the place.....

I am not a fan of planets out of dignity being indicative, in this case, of unintelligence, rather than their natural mode of operation tends to incline them to struggle with things pertaining to details, clarity of thought and comprehension of technical
I absolutely agree about this point. I saw many times brilliant minds with Mercury in Jupiter's sign, still not really in control about what they say, or saying the the wrong thing at the wrong moment, i find them generally very careless about their own words.

An example could be the Pope, who has Mercury in Pisces at the Ascendant, in prevailing square to Mars.

http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Pope_Benedict_XVI

In fact this Pope is famous for his words, not always proper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... aster.html

But i don't think a debilitated Mercury can give mental problems. Even Ptolemy does not mention this, but he considers when Moon and Mercury are unrelated to each other, but aspected by malefics.

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com