Re: Algol

2
jac wrote:Does anyone know how fast Algol travels, and how to calculate his path in a chart?

Also- is Saldalsuud a good foil for this malevolent beast?

Thank you!
Algol doesn't have a motion like the planets, or a path if I understand your question. So no speed/path other than diurnal motion (earth's rotation) at 15 degrees per hour. i.e. rising and setting etc.
Algol is fixed star and its precess is about 50.25 arc seconds or about 1 degree every 72 years. The star also has a very small amount of proper motion. So over some years, it appears almost unchanged in position in the sky. Most modern astro software accounts for this small movement in the chart output. If no software there are tables listing the tropical positions of the brighter fixed stars available.
Can't help with Saldalsuud, there are folks who use the fixed stars that can answer that part.
Hope this helps.

4
Thank you both so much! It seems like people go really crazy with it. And it's a sense of security knowing it has such small travel.

I've been reading up on it. Fascinating.

I appreciate the tips!

5
The following might be of interest

1. Algol's position (2000) 26 Tau 10 (astro.com article)
2. start of the lunar mansion Al S'ad al Su'ud 25 Cap 42 (Warnock's 'mansions of the moon)
3. Position of the fixed star Sadalsuud (2000) 23 Aqu 23 (astro.com article)

It thus follows Algol is very nearly trine to the start of the lunar mansion S'ad al Su'ud , and square to the fixed star bearing the same name. Thoughts?

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Algol is squaring Sadalsuud in my chart, so I certainly would like to know this as well. There is a lot of frightening material on Algol online without necessarily much in the way of how to approach it.

Thanks!

7
Algol is squaring Sadalsuud in my chart
If both are fixed stars, then that would be true in general, not just your chart.

Bonatti describes Algol with Mars as potential for beheadings but he goes on to describe that when benefics behold, this would basically negate this influence. He also basically says it needs power to do that in the chart, such as the Mars/Algol influence aspecting luminaries.

As in all difficult influences, Algol can be mitigated or possibly not even very important. If not, it might point to either health issues or accidents (or possibly violence). Modern astrologers give Algol more positive meaning, such as being iconoclastic in personality. They also say it can increase worry and anxiety/paranoia or exaggerating circumstances ("losing one's head"). Some also say it helps make writing ability more prominent (since it is governing the head in some respect).

Lilly says Algol emphasizing manners shows the following:
For if the Significator of Manners be with Caput Medusae [Algol] in 21. Taurus, [26 Taurus] it begets in the Native a certaine dogged nature and violence, whereby he either procures sudden death unto himselfe, or is the cause of it to otheres.
With such a description, you would expect this to be common in the charts of serial killers and other violent people and it can be found in a few charts but it can be found in the charts of non violent people too. Both Deb Houlding, the author of this site, and myself have Sun in Taurus conjunct Algol in a day chart where Sun is the luminary of sect and has more say on manners, and I don't think either of us are of a "dogged nature" or violent but we both have had health issues, hers of the brain and mine of the throat. She is also a strong writer, as evident by this website. You would expect women with such a placement to be highly emotional and manipulative but I am more commonly told I am too unemotional, and like most Taurus Suns I am quite calm. Sun can also co-rule the father and as I have said already in a thread on the nodes, my father was mentally unstable and was in an auto accident where he had brain damage and literally lost his mind. The accident occured the day before my birthday, when transit Sun was in partile conjunction with my natal Sun/Algol. So there are typically explanations for this type of placement.

John Wayn Gacy did have Saturn conjunct Algol in the 6th and Saturn in the 6th in tradition can show a disturbed mind. I could see Algol exaggerating that. https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Gacy,_John_Wayne

Dahmer had the ASC ruler co-ruling the 8th conjunct Algol.
https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Dahmer,_Jeffrey

But, again, you can find it in the charts of normal people who do not suffer violent ends.

In horary I most commonly see it as a warning that the querent is exaggerating circumstances and needs to look at matters more objectively, which is counter to the doom and gloom of traditional text.

8
It really does sound like a different octave of Pluto in many respects.
I have more than enough of the nerve-wracking 'life or death' dynamic from Pluto alone, without any trimmings attached.
These fixed stars are something else.

Thank you for this refreshing, much needed breath of sanity! 8)

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I think Algol just makes bad things terrible when it is conjunct a sensitive place in your chart and Mars, Saturn and/or Pluto are already looking nasty. Take a look at Isadora Duncan's chart (you can find it on astro-databank): a violent death is already evident, but it is hard not to link the Pluto-Algol conjunction to the way she died, with Algol being so related to beheadings.