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waybread wrote:Uranus and Scorpio are a terrible match. I don't see too many modern astrologers making use of modern exaltations. As a sign Scorpio is watery, emotional, secretive, retaliatory. While the modern rulership of Uranus for Aquarius works just fine in chart interpretation, there is at least some commonality with Aries.
Underlying the exaltation of Uranus in Scorpio, there seems to be a theme of alchemical transformation of the instinctual forces represented by Scorpio to their sublimed forms as symbolized by Uranus/Aquarius with their correspondences of birds and angels.
Exaltations are older than rulerships, and they have a sextile or trine relationship with one another, thusly:

Aries--sun--trines Leo
Taurus--moon--sextiles Cancer
Gemini--N/A
Cancer--Jupiter--trines Pisces
Leo--N/A
Virgo-- (Mercury--but also ruler)
Libra--Saturn--sextiles Aquarius
Scorpio--N/A
Sagittarius-- N/A
Capricorn--Mars--sextiles Scorpio
Aquarius-- N/A
Pisces--Venus-- sextiles Taurus

To get a Scorpio exaltation in Scorpio using this scheme, you'd be looking for a Uranus rulership of an earth or water sign, minus Taurus which is in opposition.
The thing to realize here is that the exaltations of the classical planets are occurring in signs that are sextile or trine their secondary domiciles (from the perspective of modern astrology).

This pattern is indeed continued exactly by the outers if we consider their secondary domiciles too (Uranus/Capricorn, Neptune/Sagittarius, Pluto/Aries). Thusly:

Leo--Pluto--trines Aries
Scorpio--Uranus--sextiles Capricorn
Aquarius--Neptune--sextiles Sagittarius

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Michael, here's the thing. To show that an exaltation, rulership, or what-have-you has any legitimacy whatsoever, you need to be able to use it pragmatically in horoscopes, where this really matters. Try your proposed exaltation in lots of horary, natal, electional, or predictive charts, and see if it improves your interpretive capabilities.

Then let us know your results.

No "birds and angels" about this.

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Waybread,

Remember that I am applying astrology primarily for psychological analysis where my domicile/exaltation system is doing just fine. I could offer case studies but the kind of evidence you expect is next to impossible to provide in a psychological framework.

Hey, it can't even be proven that any common form of psychotherapy is in fact effective. :-T

However, I think that astrology - like any other science - must progress on both theoretical and empirical lines.

A Uranian bird bringing inspiration comes in handy here every now and then.

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Michael Sternbach wrote: If we accept both the classical and the modern rulership schemes, the only way to keep the symmetry is to assign to each of the trans-Saturnian planets two signs, just like we do in the classical scheme. Thus, Uranus becomes the co-ruler of Capricorn, and Saturn the co-ruler of Aquarius.
Well if we want to assign rulership (and I don't), then why not go the full way. It's clear domicile rulership was built on an astronomical foundation in terms of orbital values, so let's just go the extra mile and make Uranus the ruler of Capricorn and Aquarius, Neptune with Sagittarius and Pisces, and Pluto with Aries and Scorpio.]

Going back to your Scorpio being counter intuitive in water, this is only true of course if we expect signs to match planets - a point I think you were making yourself. So why not do this?

But then if we see the planets and signs as matching on some intrinsic level, and if we already have qualities of the signs before we have those of the planets, then whilst we can attribute qualities like dry, cold etc. to the planets we must ensure that the planet's themes alter to match the sign - after all the sign's expression is what we know the most, we've had millennia with it. But if that's the case, then we ought to alter the meaning of Uranus to fit into a scheme in which it suits Saturn ruled signs.

Of course, I'm with Mark on not assigning rulership at all but some other relationship/affiliation. Personally for me, rather than focusing on the planet's (Aristotelian) qualities, I would focus more on the kinds of expression we expect from Uranus, and from the various signs, and, like a modern astrologer, see in which 'venn diagram' there's the most overlap. When I do that mentally, I intuitively come to Aries, rather than Aquarius, for Uranus. In fact not just Aries, but I also start thinking of Uranus something like an 'alloy' or combination of traditional planets or signs. I start to connect it not just with Mars, but also the Sun. That's not to talk about higher octaves, or anything like that. But if we imagined that the traditional planets are the primary colours, I see no reason why we couldn't view the outer planets as secondary colours, the mixing of two primaries. They are colours in their own right and whilst they can be broken into sharing their parts from the traditional scheme, they are, still, more than the sum of their parts. For me, that secondary colour/alloy with Uranus, matches more Aries as I understand them both.

But of course if we wish to follow the domicile dignity scheme as well, then we're going to have to decide why Aquarius and not Capricorn, why Capricorn and not Aquarius. If we do it by some sense of being more masculine or feminine, or more diurnal or nocturnal, and link this to the solar half of the zodiac (Leo->Capricorn), or lunar half (Cancer<-Aquarius).

But for me we avoid the mess entirely if we don't, and we just use some other relationship/affiliation that we understand - especially when, for me, in practice I do not see Uranus acting in the same manner, in terms of being a lord of a given sign hosting other planets in it, or signifying topics in which that sign is on the cusp of a house, as I do Saturn.
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